[governance] critique of the IBSA proposal

Sat Sep 17 19:15:25 EDT 2011

While I wonder if I should delve my spoon into this complicated soup,
here is the official IBAS/IBSA site URL:

http://www.ibsa-trilateral.org/

A Southern Trilateral, how about that? :)

frt rgds

--c.a.

On 09/17/2011 06:59 PM, Rui Correia wrote:
> 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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