[governance] CSTD

[William Drake]

Hi Parminder

On May 23, 2010, at 11:36 AM, parminder wrote:

> Hi Bill
> 
> A couple of comments inline, in a spirit of debate on this important issue. 
> 
> William Drake wrote:
>> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> While I agree that the mandate is not exhausted by the performance reports and that a meeting could be useful,
> merely 'useful' or necessary and important and urgent... there is a huge swathe of political space between these different articulations, and I strongly tend towards the later. 

No swathe intended, important is fine
>>  I had a different concern in this meeting, about the very restrictive way some governments and orgs and choosing to read the TAIS.  They kept citing para 69 alone as the definition and saying that moves like establishing the ITU dedicated group on IG implement the mandate, but para 71 makes clear that EC is suppose to be multistakeholder, which the dedicated group is not.  Purely intergovernmental processes from which non-state actors are excluded are not EC, in my view, and I wish this point had been raised forcefully.
>>   
> We resisted any conflation of the process of 'enhanced cooperation' EC with the ITU dedicated group on IG, which move admittedly appears aimed at appropriating the 'global public policies on Internet' or the EC process.
> 
> But it is our view, the reason ITU is able to increasingly appropriate it is only because a more legitimate and appropriate process of EC has not started. and all those who stay quiet and non-comittal on EC, in fact not actively promote movement towards such a process, strengthen the hand of ITU kind of process. 

Total agreement.  Was also an argument for IGF.
> 
> Politics abhor vacuum, and to the extent that there are some very important, urgent and pressing Internet-related global public policy issues, with no legitimate place for the less-powerful groups/ countries to resolve them, either we help develop a more participative, legitimate, appropriate etc  global political space  - which  is our purpose  in pursuing the  EC agenda -  or  we  have ITU kind of  processes take over.  There is no point in  keeping on making statements that we want more multistakeholderism without supporting and coming out with meaningful alternatives.

Yes, although it's difficult to imagine what a decently configured space could look like, which has probably contributed to the lack of enthusiastic uptake of the challenge.  
> 
> And the attitude of dominant actors, but also, much more regretfully, a lot of civil society actors, to the express WSIS mandate to pursue a process of EC is rather regrettable. It perhaps speaks of a political economy of the existing regimes and structures of power around the Internet - and the respective comfort or lack of it of different actors. 

Here we can agree to disagree, I don't regret differences of view or feel comfortable attributing them to comfort with power structures etc.  
> 
> SO, when you seek the 'multistakeholder' aspect to be raised any more forcefully that it already has been  - it is, IMHO, best  rather only meaningful if, done by positing real alternatives that can meet the political need of a legitimate, participative, appropriate etc  global political space/ forum to address urgent existing and emergent public policy issues at the global level. 

I think it's reasonable to object to exclusionary and misdirected policy processes even if one doesn't have a complete model to lay out as an alternative.  CS does this all the time, always has.  You're setting the bar pretty high.
> 
> Politics of silence can be politics of submission to the extant power structures. As  dominant  players  rule the roost  - global digital  cooperations  making their own globally applicable laws and policies, and countries of the North taking the unilateral or plurilateral (ACTA) route to make policies and rules which due to the inherently global nature of the Internet will in default become global policies, developing countires need to get their act together fast. That is what for us EC is all about. 
> 
> Also, let me say that for us this is the principle element of devleopment agenda in IG. Without an appropriate political space there is no meaning of political agendas.

So ICANN's contractual link to the USG and being under California law have a clear and presumably negative linkage to development?  By which I don't mean governmental political preferences, but rather development per se.  I'm open to persuasion, please make the case.

Thanks,

Bill


>> On May 22, 2010, at 10:34 AM, parminder wrote:
>> 
>>   
>>> Enclosed is a statement made by IT for Change to the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, on the first day of its 5 day sitting. More on this later. 
>>>     
>> 
>> 
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***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
 Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************


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