[governance] FW: [IP] India proposes UN "takeover" of Internet

[Pranesh Prakash]

Milton L Mueller wrote [2011-10-30 00:50]:
> Some history for Pranesh, since he is evidently unfamiliar with it. 

Thanks for the history lesson, Milton.  Much appreciated.

> WSIS did indeed try to "take over" ICANN, it just failed because of the people and arguments you now reject. Although it was always an exaggeration to claim that the UN was trying
to take over the Internet as a whole, these fears were exaggerated NOT
because many governments did not, in fact, want to do that but simply
because they lacked the capability to do so. And they lacked that
capability because most of Internet and telecoms is in the hands of
private companies responding to market forces - something that the same
people also tend to reject.

When I read that paragraph, I see sentiments that I  agree with and
arguments that I don't ('they lacked the capability to do so'—I see
political pressure as having played a greater role).

I think there are 'market forces' other than those of economics, which
also helped out: differences in legal regimes would mean that coming to
bare global minimums would be impossible.  (So while talking about human
rights being the foundation of internet governance is a jolly good thing
to do, we all know it is not as easy to implement as a global policy.
In one country it might be illegal to ban ultra-right wing speech
calling for violence, and in another country it might be illegal not to
ban it.)

But then, we also see that there is the UN Charter and the UDHR, which
contains lofty ideals, and which all UN countries have agreed to, yet
how those ideas pan out when it comes to self-sovereignty of peoples,
international slavery, labour laws, and freedom of speech shows that
while countries actions might be shaped by them, they are not governed
by them. There are governed by realpolitik, which has to incorporate the
various other things that go to shape governmental actions including
pressure from human rights organizations, from corporations, and other
governments and inter-governmental organizations.

A question: if WSIS lacked 'the capability' to 'take over' ICANN, what
has since changed that the CIRP could do so?  As you've said in your
blog post on the CIRP, "CIRP looks more like a government-centered IGF -
one that is empowered to make recommendations - than a global Internet
Czar."

> And now you suggest that a proposal by a rising state to throw this all into the hands of the UN is some harmless thing.

I do not, for two reasons. First, I believe that is a characterisation
without sufficient nuance—and thus falls in the same category as the
original statement on 'UN take over', which you yourself agreed is
lacking in nuance.  Second, I think that such proposals are a necessary
part of shifting from the status quo.  I further believe that private
entities are not in a position to lead a shift from the status quo
(since it is governments that have kept the status quo in place).
Private entities must necessarily get their governments (whether it is
the US government, or others) to shift away from the status quo.

> People in civil society, such as Jeremy, who rightly see some of the hypocrisy underlying defenses of the status quo but who fail to see the far more serious threat of destroying the more open, organically Developed Internet Institutions (ODII) by sovereignty-based intergovernmental hierarchies are deeply out of touch with political reality on a global basis, or are letting their anger get the better of them and losing perspective completely.

This is the actual crux of our disagreement.  I believe that thinking
that governments do not or should not play a central role in Internet
governance is, while desirable, not possible given current political
realities of the way international politics is wedded to and embedded in
nation states.  Can such things change?  Undoubtedly so.  (To take an
example outside of the realm of IG, there is a shift in customary
international law in the treatment of Non State Actors vis-a-vis Article
51 of the UN Charter in the past thirty years.)  Are things changing
within IG?  I'm afraid not in the right direction, and not quickly enough.

In a few days the US is about to put out a new contract for the IANA, on
which excellent discussions have been taking place on this list, on the
IGP blog, and elsewhere.  While things like the AOC might exist, while
the IAB exists, etc., what exactly has changed from the Department of
Commerce take over (without quotes) of the domain name system in 1998?
What has happened to AlterNIC, what's happened OSRN, and to dynamism in
the market leading to decrease in government control?  The truth is: the
Internet, in many ways, has become more ossified as the private entities
responsible for the networks and the services and content delivered over
it have grown larger, and with the increasing tendencies of governments
to regulate the Internet more finely.  The truth is that most private
entities are wary of getting on the wrong side of government (or are
eager for more government contracts) and cooperate in all kinds of
censorship and surveillance, even if they are prohibited from doing so
by the law.  And often, such cooperation is required by the law.

Lawmakers in the United States are seeking to establish control of the
DNS system, treating it as property of unrepresented vigilantes. US
courts have agreed with them.  This will affect not just those in the
United States (as with Iranian government's censorship regime which
affects only Iranians), but .com, .org and .net users everywhere.  I am
not telling you anything you don't know and haven't already spoken out
against.

We both agree that governments tend to wish for greater control, and
this must be resisted (in favour of open, functional,
multi-stakeholderism).  Ours is a disagreement on the how.  I believe
that governments must get involved and lead this change because none of
the other stakeholders are capable, even if willing, of doing so, and
you believe that will be positively harmful as governments will not
willingly lead a change towards less governmental control and the shift
to the UN from US-centrism as being a case of two wrongs not making a right.

> We do not have to choose between the status quo and the UN (an earlier, kruftier status quo). Everyone needs to write that on the chalkboard 50 times. 

A small quibble: I think it is not useful to simply say "UN" without
examining what that means.  For instance, is IGF, as it stands now,
"UN"?  Would a renewed, reformed IGF mandate be "UN"?  Is "enhanced
cooperation" between nation-states by itself "UN", given the current
lack of alternatives?

And I think exploring alternatives aloud and in the public, even if
idealistic and (currently) politically infeasible, is a necessary part
of getting change and making them feasible.  Which is why your book, and
some of the current discussions on this list on 'alternatives to the
status quo', are extremely useful and important.  Having said that, I
don't see any other serious proposals to create an effective
(non-superficial) change in the status quo.

Lastly, I believe you ["fair assessment"][1] is a much clearer
exposition of the problems with the CIRP proposal than this e-mail.

Regards,
Pranesh

 [1]:

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Programme Manager
Centre for Internet and Society
W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 262 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20111030/5b4cfd79/attachment.sig>