[governance] Help from MAG colleagues

[JFC Morfin]

At 16:49 26/03/2011, Paul Lehto wrote:
>With these 'questionable' governments, the question is not one of bad
>policy or hurting one's own people, but of freedom and democracy.

Incorrect. Democracy (happily) is not a human right.

What is a human right (art 29) is to live in a legal environment 
matching the standards of a "democratic society". Since a democratic 
society is not defined...

The closest practical definition that we are interested in is found 
in art 21 (3): "The will of the people shall be the basis of the 
authority of government; this shall be expressed in periodic and 
genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and 
shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

Now, we are certainly very far from art 21 (3) in the Internet 
Governance (which actually is an international test-bed for the next 
step after democracy, which will be a polycracy, and we are actually 
trying to multiconsensually define -. - a (rough) consensus as we 
experiment on it in the IETF (probably the currently most achieved 
and efficient implementation in the internet world) is not adapted to 
the principle of subsidiarity that is now included in the Internet 
architecture. Each freely defined subsidiary space is entitled to its 
own consensus, if this does not violate subsidiarity and, therefore, 
if this consensus is able to consensually interoperate, intergovern, 
and interadmin with other consensuses.

An interesting remark that would probably change our no more 
democratic world, would be the respect of art 1 and art 2 ("All human 
beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are 
endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another 
in a spirit of brotherhood", "Everyone is entitled to all the rights 
and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of 
any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or 
other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other 
status."). While we still discriminate everywhere on the basis of 
age. We are born equal, but not before reaching the age of majority. 
Young people should vote through their parents. May be we would have 
fewer problems without this "not-yet-citizens" human right violation 
that is found the world over.

We have that kind of problem in the internet governance. When 
Bertrand de la Chapelle told the ICANN President that France also 
considered the will of not-yet-connected people, the President 
answered that his duties were carried out only for those paying him.

We are actually free to accept such a democracy or to build a more 
adequate polycracy.
jfc

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