[governance] critique of the IBSA proposal

Sat Sep 17 17:59:17 EDT 2011

Hi

Just in case anybody is wondering what IBSA is, it stands for
India-Brasil-SouthAfrica,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India-Brazil-South_Africa_Dialogue_Forum(English)
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B3rum_de_Di%C3%A1logo_%C3%8Dndia-Brasil-%C3%81frica_do_Sul(Portuguese)

Not to be confused with the better known BRIC - Brasil-Russia-India-China;
or
BRICS - Brasil-Russia-India-China-SouthAfrica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC (English)
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC (Portuguese)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS (English)
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS (Portuguese)

Regards, great weekend
Um abraço, bom fim de semana

Rui

2011/9/17 Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>

> Some first reactions to the IBSA proposal. You will not be hearing any
> applause from me. The proposal is unimaginative, backward-looking, and
> authoritarian. If it were actually implemented, which is highly unlikely,
> the proposal would be very destructive. ****
>
> ** **
>
> One notable and surprising thing: IBSA has bypassed the IGF. By putting
> forward this proposal in the way it has, IBSA has openly declared that it
> does not put any credibility or legitimacy in the IGF as a forum for
> multistakeholder Internet policy development or discussion. This is true
> because the IBSA proposal was developed outside of IGF in an exclusive club
> of countries, and will not be put forward formally at the IGF. Rather, it
> will be developed at the closed IBSA summit, and then taken directly to the
> UN General Assembly. ****
>
> ** **
>
> This is unacceptable to civil society. It excludes us from the entire
> process. IBSA needs to be asked why it has chosen not to use a MS forum, a
> forum its members helped to create, to gain agreement for this proposal.**
> **
>
> ** **
>
> The IBSA report says that “the models proposed by the WGIG provided useful
> guidelines” for a new global Internet governance body. This is a strange
> statement. There were four different models proposed in the WGIG report, and
> most of them were inconsistent with each other. One of the WGIG proposals
> explicitly stated that no new global body was needed. So perhaps IBSA is
> trying to pretend that its proposal has some kind of imprimatur from the
> WGIG or the WSIS. It doesn’t. WGIG couldn’t agree on any of those models,
> that was the point of listing 4 of them.****
>
> ** **
>
> The specific duties of the new global body make up an interesting list. It
> will be “tasked to develop and establish international public policies.” So
> it makes the same stupid mistake that governments have been making all
> along: it is law, i.e. rules, not “policy” that is needed. Policy just means
> that a gang of governments attempts to dictate outcomes, or alter outcomes
> whenever something happens that they don’t like. Law on the other hand
> provides a framework of clear rules that allows individual actors guidelines
> and which also protects freedom. ****
>
> ** **
>
> And here’s my favorite. IBSA proposes to “integrate and oversee the bodies
> responsible for technical and operational functioning of the internet,
> including global standards setting.” So IBSA is not only proposing to take
> over regulation of all the world’s internet service providers, hosting
> providers, mobile networks, and perhaps even equipment suppliers, it
> proposes to “integrate and oversee” the IETF as well. Presumably ICANN, too.
> No rationale for such a dramatic change is put forward. ****
>
> ** **
>
> This proposal will fail to gain support from most of the internet-using
> civil society, it will be adamantly opposed by the technical community, and
> it will have very little support from the academic community. Needless to
> say, all Internet businesses will oppose it, and so will most governments
> outside the IBSA orbit.****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Milton L. Mueller****
>
> Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies****
>
> Internet Governance Project****
>
> http://blog.internetgovernance.org ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> On Saturday 17 September 2011 01:40 AM, Marilia Maciel wrote: ****
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> I would like to share with you some news about the IBSA seminar on global
> Internet governance that took place in FGV-Rio de Janeiro in the beginning
> of this month. Tight schedule and deadlines have prevented me to report the
> discussions with the depth and length I would like to, but I have written a
> blog post about it to the site of the Brazilian Observatory of Digital
> policies, which has been circulating on Twitter recently:
>
> http://observatoriodainternet.br/discussions-and-recommendations-from-the-ibsa-seminar-on-internet-governance
>
> I will be happy to talk more about it and share impressions here (if time
> allows) or in Nairobi.
>
> Best wishes,
> Marília
>
> ****
>
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-- 
_________________________
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I am away from Johannesburg - you cannot contact me on my South African
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Rui Correia
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