[governance] THIRD DRAFT statement on enhanced cooperation

[Jeremy Malcolm]

It will be impossible to simultaneously satisfy people like Parminder and people like McTim, so here is my attempt at dissatisfying them equally.  The biggest changes are the substitution of a new preamble for the old one, and deletion of the "do nothing" bullet point under numbered-paragraph 2.  Let's continue to have your comments as we try and reach some common ground.

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The Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (CS-IGC) regards the process towards enhanced cooperation as a vital step towards addressing the "many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not adequately addressed by the current mechanisms" (Tunis Agenda para 68).

Despite an intergovernmental mandate from WSIS to address this governance deficit, much remains to be done.  It is imperative that this deficit continue to be addressed, where appropriate through new institutional developments that comply with the WSIS process criteria of being multilateral, transparent, democratic and inclusive.

We make three further points.  First, enhanced cooperation should encompass all Internet-related public policy issues; second, the existing arrangements of relevant organisations (including the Internet Governance Forum) do not fully implement enhanced cooperation, and thirdly whatever new arrangements may be put in place, civil society will play an integral part in them.

These points will be explained in turn:

1. Although much of the discussion of enhanced cooperation at WSIS turned around the narrow issue of internationalising the oversight of Internet naming and numbering functions, the Tunis Agenda expresses this principle far more broadly.  It also reminds us that the ultimate objective of our cooperation is to advance a people-centred, inclusive, development-oriented and non-discriminatory Information Society.

2. The IGF in its present form is a very important part of the enhanced cooperation process, in that ideally its multi-stakeholder process can help to shape decisions taken on Internet related public policy issues in other fora.  However the full realisation of enhanced cooperation will require a multi-stakeholder process to extend to other Internet governance organisations that do not already follow this model.

There are various options for enhancing multi-stakeholder cooperation within and amongst all relevant organisations.  These include:

* establishing a lightweight multi-stakeholder observatory process perhaps hosted under the auspices of the IGF (pursuant to its mandate in paragraph 72(i));

* utilising a virtual and voluntary global social community or "social grid", linking together all Internet governance organisations, in which all stakeholders would participate; or

* establishing a new umbrella governance institution for Internet policy development, with space for the participation of each stakeholder group in its respective role.

3. Paragraph 71 of the Tunis Agenda makes very clear that civil society is an integral participant in the development of any process towards enhanced cooperation.  Therefore the IGC, in our capacity as members of civil society, looks forward to contributing constructively in transparent, accountable and democratic multi-stakeholder consultations towards this end.

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PS. It's entirely possible I have missed some emails.  I'm in Laos with a terrible Internet connection.  I'll catch up and incorporate anything I missed into the fourth draft.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Project Coordinator
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599

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