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

[Milton L Mueller]

In fact my attitude to this proposal is informed very strongly by political reality. You might recall that the IGC's original response to WGIG's IGF proposal was that the the IGF should be situated outside of the United Nations, too.  If it had been, would it even still exist now?
[Milton L Mueller] Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question, to which the answer is obvious? Problem is, I don't know what would have happened had it been outside the UN. The IGF is off the UN budget so I see no financial reason why it wouldn't exist, but perhaps you mean that BRIC and other governments would have abandoned it or refused to participate?
Yet the IGF is not the earlier, kruftier version of the UN that the IGC perhaps feared when advocating that it be situated outside the UN.
[Milton L Mueller] which is why IBSA are rejecting it (IGF), no?
For the last few years I have taken heat for my idea that the IGF, if it is to be able to make recommendations as its mandate requires, should before allow governments (and the other stakeholder groups too) a power of veto over those recommendations before they are issued.  That position, and my response to the CIRP proposal,* are influenced strongly by the same political realities.
[Milton L Mueller] As you know, we agree on this. I think the real answer to your and Parminder's concerns is to strengthen the IGF.
"enhanced cooperation" was never going to be just the IGF on steroids: it was always going to be government-led.  As such, situating it in the UN is not preferable, merely inevitable.
[Milton L Mueller] True, enhanced cooperation to many WSIS negotiators meant "more multilateralism" and "more government." But why do you let backwards-looking nation states define the parameters of what is possible? I reject this "inevitability" argument, and believe that there is no surer way to abandon every principle that makes this process worth participating in than to accept as inevitable something that just happens to be what some powerful people want.
The UN is, doubtless, as corrupt as the United States Congress or the Chinese Community Party.  But to its credit, it does play such plutocracies and dictatorships against each other,
[Milton L Mueller] ...resulting in deadlock, as in the Syria case or the Palestine case.
 resulting in the curbing of their worst excesses.
[Milton L Mueller] And when the states all agree, as in law enforcement surveillance and subordination of users to national security interests, what then?
Consider for example, how much worse the WIPO Copyright Treaties or ACTA would have been, if the United States, EU and Japan had been able to draft these on their own.
[Milton L Mueller] The difference is marginal, actually. But even if I accept your point for the sake of argument, the key difference is that on copyright issues some of the developing countries provide a pushback to the IPR-dominant countries; but on censorship, privacy and security issues they pull in the opposite direction - and could make things much worse.
So even if the CIRP was purely intergovernmental
[Milton L Mueller] It is purely intergovernmental. Like the OECD, it adds some vote-less advisory groups to an intergovernmental process. (oh, and also let me use this opportunity to address Parminder's silly comment. The reason you don't see any harangues about the OECD from me is because it already exists, so the best we can hope for is to broaden participation in it. If there were a debate about whether the 30 richest states should suddenly form a new IGO focused on Internet policy with a CSISAC, a BIAC and a ITAC tagging alongside, I would say the exact same things I am saying about CIRP.
we might still expect that its policies may be "somewhat less bad than the status quo". But because of its multi-stakeholder character, we can hope for much more: that civil society will finally have a and positive real impact on policies such as those that are being developed right now, outside of any transnational multi-stakeholder framework, that are destroying the Internet as we know it.
[Milton L Mueller] This statement re-convinces me that you don't have a good grasp of the political realities. Sorry.
First, give me an example of what specific policies would be better if the UN were involved and the number of states were broadened. Just one would do.

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