[governance] Your support for a petition

Mon Feb 21 11:08:40 EST 2011

I can't believe how off-topic and pointless this conversation has become. Sorry if I am offending anyone, but in essence you are quibbling in abstract terms about whether you want the people behind a firing squad to be taking orders from governments or business, and you are missing an opportunity to question whether there should be a firing squad at all!

Let's get this clear. Just as it would be unacceptable for a TLD veto "for any reason" to be administered by ICANN the private corporation, so it is unacceptable for one to be administered by the GAC. In both cases, the power to suppress expression would be unregulated by any legitimate form of democratically developed law or liberal norms regarding minimal intrusions into peaceful private affairs.

Parminder, I want to see your signature on that petition, or else I want to see some much, much better rationale for why it is not.

Milton L. Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Internet Governance Project
http://blog.internetgovernance.org

From: governance-request at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of parminder
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 8:26 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Your support for a petition

Hi Avri

On Friday 18 February 2011 11:49 AM, Avri Doria wrote:

hi,

They are quite careful to explain that the required consensus, only requires one country to voice the objection and other countries to keep their silence.

And in the collegiality of the GAc, we can expect that most representatives will keep their silence so that others will keep their silence when they object.

I understand there are problems. But in relation to the collegiality among gov reps, the collegiality of all those who represents the political interests of big business is many many times more, and so much more solid, and sticky.

The GAC does not vote, it mostly just goes along silently behind the lead of a few leaders.  So it is questionable what one could take to court on a national basis

Both acts of omission and commission are liable to be challenged if the rights of a citizen are affected. And not exercising the right to veto an objection is a clear act of omission, if there ever was one.  In any case, with democratic governments there are at least some avenues of checks and balances on which we can work, while one can keep seeking further improvements.

As for your comments on the ICC Center of Expertise, that is another problem and many of us agree with you, but the two problems do not cancel each other out.
They dont. And in real world which presents real choices, we have to begin with one of the two problem situations. I choose governments over big business. With governments there are ways to work on improvements - as is happening on such a big scale in the middle east, which will no doubt also have a big influence, eventually, on global governance. With big business the logic is simply of profit and accumulation. That is what all economists and business schools also tell us. What is my avenue of seeking accountability from it?

And yeah, we know you are not enamored of big business.
Nothing against big business it they stick to what they are supposed to do - organize our productive forces more effectively. The problem comes when they want to corner political power as well (which includes distributional issues),  which is what often happens in IG arena, evne more than everywhere else. And IMHO the IG civil society has been rather lacking in recognizing and addressing this  key global IG issue.

Parminder

a.

someone who signed the petition

On 18 Feb 2011, at 00:36, parminder wrote:

Milton/ Norbert

Excuse my ignorance about complicated ICANN issues. I am still only trying to understand the issue but...

Do you think an objection that needs to be supported by *a full consensus in the GAC* is really 'putting GAC in charge of domain name policy. How easy is it to get a consensus among all governments. In fact pursuant to any such consensus it is at present 'legal' to militarily raid and takeover any country. But that really doesn't happen that often, right.

Moreover, how does it compare with the present practice where any adjudication regarding 'public interest' issues involved in domain name policy is done by a body of the International Chambers of Commerce. Interestingly, this body of ICC - the ICC International Centre of Expertise - on its website claims expertise in 'every conceivable subject relevant to business operations'. Business operations?? Public interest ?? Am I missing something here.

Furthermore, any vote of any country (say, the US) in the GAC on a public interest issue,  since its implication will also be produced within that country, should be able to be challenged in the national courts vis a vis its compliance to constitutional and subordinate law.

As you would have surmised, I am not too enamored of global political power being exercised by big business, and between         that and legitimate political systems, will prefer to work with the latter, and seek reforms to them.

And, Milton, if a legitimate transnational political system has to be sought, placing big business in a central position is hardly the right way to go about it. It is best sought as an evolution from existing representative systems.

Parminder

On Friday 18 February 2011 01:13 PM, Norbert Klein wrote:

On 02/17/2011 12:31 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

I am seeking support for this online petition, which some of us will carry into the IGF Geneva consultation and then the Brussels ICANN meeting. It relates to the U.S. Commerce Department's efforts to put the GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) in charge of domain name policy.

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/nogacveto

Please sign it if you agree! And redistribute the link widely if you can!

Already done.

Norbert Klein

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