[governance] CSTD

[Jeanette Hofmann]

Hi Anriette,

[...]

> The differences in position among governments on internet public policy
> are so vast that an intergovernmental policy space is likely to spend
> much of its time in deadlock. Civil society's agenda in such a space
> (assuming there will be some way for us to be in this space in a
> 'balanced' way) is likely to be set by governments and the contestation
> between them. 

I fully agree with your observation that governments don't have enough 
common ground to overcome the deadlock we could observe throughout WSIS. 
   And while WSIS was helpful for the formation of the civil society 
network we have right now, our own contributions were pretty much driven 
by the dynamics between government blocks.

I think that the struggle for enhanced cooperation but also for formal 
outcomes at the IGF overrates the international capacity for policy 
making and it underrates the unintended side-effects of formal 
negotiation processes. Many of us watched and participated in the WSIS 
process for several years. Numerous people spent endless hours on 
declaration documents with deliberately ambiguous language because 
otherwise no consensus would have been possible. The main session on 
enhanced cooperation in Hyderabad spelled this out in detail.

Obviously, we would not want to repeat this experience but what makes 
people so optimistic to expect that governments and the various 
stakeholders could significantly go beyond that?

jeanette
> 
> Is this ALL really what we want?
> 
> There is obviously more to say than this, and I have always been in
> favour of the IGF sending stronger messages to other institutions and to
> governments. I also believe we should try and see IG from the
> perspective of those governments outside North America and the EU. They
> have legitimate concerns.
> 
> As civil society our primary responsibility should be to ensure that
> internet public policy spaces, both decision-making and dialogue spaces,
> remain open to our participation and that human rights and
> rights-oriented social, cultural and economic development concerns
> becomes a stronger driver in these spaces.
> 
> Anriette
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2010-05-24 at 00:31 +0530, parminder wrote:
>>
>> Milton L Mueller wrote: 
>>> P:
>>> Why did it not come out stronger or more directly in favor of using the IGF for the development of GAPPs? (globally applicable public policy principles)
>>> --MM
>>>   
>> For one, because I have tried often and long in this space to get
>> civil society to rally around some possibilities  of the IGF
>> structuring itself to be able to  do some such thing.  But this has
>> largely been unsuccessful.
>>
>> It does surprise me often that many who keep asking for
>> multi-stakeholder systems to have strong policy role, instead of
>> intergov models, at the same time do not support IGF making any
>> progress towards making recommends, which is the least that would be
>> implied for it to take up the role you mention above. (I have tried my
>> best for it, and still do. We supported a CSTD working group with
>> likely multistakeholder involvement to suggest specific improvements
>> in the IGF which hopefully should be in the direction of making it
>> more purposeful.)
>>
>> Almost the last straw was the move earlier this year towards perhaps
>> even doing away with the MAG, which is the only structures part of the
>> IGF whereby it can move in the directions I, and presumably you, would
>> like it to.  
>>
>> We continue to believe that IGF should have a very strong role in
>> development of globally applicable public policy principles. 
>>
>> Also, our statement had a basic advocacy focus towards seeking some
>> movement on EC, and we did not want to dilute it, especailly when many
>> others were strongly using the ruse of the IGF to resist any such
>> movement. Our statement  was coupled with a lot of lobbying with
>> developing country govs and others. I think we would see an open
>> consultation meeting on EC to be called by the Secretary General
>> before the end of the year. 
>>
>> Parminder  
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: parminder [parminder at itforchange.net]
>>> Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2010 4:34 AM
>>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
>>> Subject: [governance] CSTD
>>>
>>> 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. parminder
>>>   
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