AW: [governance] CSTD IX. Conclusions and recommendations

[parminder]

Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
>  
> This is a red hering.
Agree. but important to note who or which side creates this red herring.

>  The question is not whether the outcome should be binding or not binding (to become legally binding you need a ratification by a national parliament), the question is whether the outcome is a negotiated text or just a collection of various relevant points of views/messages (where the pressure for players to accept such a "message" comes from the strength of the argument and not from the number of votes). 
>   
Excuse me to say, negotiated or not may be another red herring. All this 
is trying to reduce complex political process (which by their inherent 
meaning has to have some convergent directions) , made more complex by 
multi stakeholderism, to simplistic binaries, to be able to then arrive 
at the 'obvious' answer that serves one side of the debate.

There are many stages between fully negotiated stuff to a set of 
graduated processes to close differences enough to provide concrete 
enough policy options. Everyone knows that it this intermediate kinds of 
outcomes that we have to have to arrive at. This is really the out of 
box kind of thing to refer to below.
>  
> If you start negotiations, you close mind and mouth of decision makers and participants will only try to get "their position" reflected in the final document. You kill thinking out of the box 
On the other hand one can say that when one knows that there is no 
specific need or context to 'close the gaps and understanding' towards 
some convergences, every actor can keep on speaking what they always 
speak, which is what we see happen at present at the IGF (and thus we 
have an empirical proof) rather than having to think out-of-box to be 
able to offer alternative positions which are more likely to have a 
broader acceptance.

> and end up with "recommendations" like "the Internet should contribute to peace and international understanding and help underserved countries to enhance access to the Internet". Nobody, with the exception of paid diplomats (paid by tax payers/Internet users money) would go year by year to an annual conference which produces such type of "outcomes".  After five years, when the IGF has to be re-evaluated, there would be enough arguments to close the IGF because it produces nothing more than Blabla and its "Final Declarations" will disappear in the bookshelfs of the forgotten documents.  
>   
Again not only can there be the exact opposite view but there is also 
good empirical evidence to assert that the present form of the IGF is 
more associated with purposelessness and boredom and people wondering 
why they should keep attending, and that not much more than, to use your 
term. blabla, happens.

My friend, there are always trade offs and it finally boils down 'where 
one stand' and what kind of trade off look better to take from ones 
vantage. It depends for whom the status quo looks not too bad and for 
whom there is rather great hurry to get urgent policy interventions vis 
a vis a situation that is already bad going worse.

Rather than going by the list below which i dont fully understand it 
will be good to look at each of the Tunis Agenda mandate items, and 
specific observations by the UN Gen Assembly reg IGF improvements, and 
look at structural deficiencies and required innovations for each...

In any case you do think the functions you mention will not require some 
closing of gaps and documentation of them. Take for instance the 
watchdog function . Either one is able to put some concrete stuff down 
about how ITU or ICANN have fared vis a vis some specific issues, or one 
is just saying some people said this others quite the opposite - which 
is no way different from what already happens. People make all kind of 
observations at the workshops and plenaries and all of them are equally 
forgotten right away.

Parminder
>  
> We should go beyond the traditional conference systems and try to be more innovative and create something new. 
> I repeat my proposal with the seven roles/functions IGF 2.0 could play:
> 1. Observatory
> 2. Clearinghouse
> 3. Laboratory
> 4. School
> 5. Scout
> 6. Early Warning System
> 7. Watchdog
>  
> For each of the seven function one can develop a special procedure how to translate this into concrete elements of an IGF process. 
>  
> wolfgang 
>  
> ________________________________
>
> Von: Jeremy Malcolm [mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org]
> Gesendet: Sa 29.01.2011 02:03
> An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Yrjö Länsipuro
> Betreff: Re: [governance] CSTD IX. Conclusions and recommendations
>
>
> On 29/01/2011, at 3:07 AM, Yrjö Länsipuro wrote:
>
>
> 	
> 	 I have great  respect for the outcomes of processes that produced the great  documents you mentioned, but the IGF is not such a process. It is not a treaty conference, it is a forum for multistakeholder policy dialogue. I agree, it's purpose is clearly written in article 72 of Tunis Agenda.  I'm all for implementing all of it, but not for turning the IGF into a binding process expressly excluded in article 77.
>
>
> This straw man has been crucified one too many times.  I remember standing up in a workshop in Athens to explain my views on why the IGF needed to be empowered to produce recommendations, only for another (member of the IGC, actually) to spend the next five minutes lambasting me for wanting the IGF to become a binding process.  In fact I am not aware that anyone, ever, has suggested that the IGF's recommendations should be binding - indeed, those terms are contradictory.
>
>   

-- 
PK

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