[governance] SOPA or no SOPA

[parminder]

On Monday 12 December 2011 07:19 PM, John Curran wrote:
>
> Karl, Parminder -
>
>    While acknowledging the value and need for countervailing mechanisms,
>    we also need to have mechanisms operating entirely within the established
>    organizations at a policy level which amplify less well-funded/backed
>    voices in the policy process.
>    

John,
Nothing can I agree to more! If there were one mission of our 
organisation it will be to promote such democratic participation.

>    For example, from a policy perspective, the way that the ASO handles
>    global policies requires alignment of communities in all five regional
>    registries to establish new global policy.  This is an intentionally
>    high bar; one that requires solid consensus in order to proceed.
>    Parties have multiple fora in which to make their case for/against
>    a policy, and actual listening and accommodation of needs of less
>    popular views is inevitably required if one hopes to make new global
>    address policy.
>    

I greatly appreciate the ideal of high level of consensus that is upheld 
in a lot of technical policy making processes, and it may/does work to 
prevent highjacking of policy making processes by a few, more powerful. 
However, larger political issues, beyond the technical, may not be best 
served by similar processes. By definition, 'technical' is that in which 
case there is always a best (or close to best) solution that is 
beneficial more or less to all, except maybe a minuscule minority. 
However, the 'political', the subject of public polices, involves much 
clearer trade-offs and division-of-benefits/losses. Consensus based 
governance processes, like multistakeholderism (as a system of 
governance), in such cases, simply perpetuate the status quo, which is 
often very unjust.

The most powerful interests are able to veto any progressive change. For 
instance, if we were looking at whether the richest should be taxed 
more, a hot political issue in the US, what are the chances that such a 
move can be carried by consensus? And if large corporates sat at the 
policy table, will they  let it pass? I am just trying to make a point 
that what works in CIR management does not necessarily work for larger 
political and public policy issues involved in global Internet 
governance. The latter require a different response. But, as I said in 
my reply to Karl, in IG civil society spaces we are still largely stuck 
in a situation where questions about larger political/ public policy 
issues related to IG get responded to by an analysis and 'solution' 
largely from within a CIR management thinking. Wherein, it is very easy 
to react to any genuine political effort to address these political 
problems by a knee jerk response that non-US governments just want to 
take control of CIR management.

>    Whether these mechanisms with the established Internet systems are
>    sufficient to prevent external policy imposition by state actors
>    remains on open question; one hopes that we can at least limit the
>    effect of such incursions to entities within the state's purview.
>    

The precise point of my original 'sopa or no sopa' posting was to show 
how this is not the case, and US state actors are able to impose their 
will over the whole world. This is a 'real situation' that requires a 
'real response'. In the circumstances, the least that global civil 
society can do is to sympathise with developing countries when they 
speak up against such unfairness and injustice, and call for urgent 
corrective actions.

parminder
>    That may not be ideal, but in theory such actions are no different
>    than any other disagreement between government/governed regarding
>    appropriate voice&  representation and hence not global Internet
>    governance matters per se.
>
> FYI,
> /John
>
> Disclaimer:  My views alone. This view may be obstructed or eliminated
> by subsequent development which may reduce the overall value of thoughts
> by those enjoying it, and repeated use of this view does not create any
> easement in my mind protecting against future redevelopment.
>
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