[governance] critique of the IBSA proposal

Sun Sep 18 00:27:25 EDT 2011

Dear Milton,

I would like to comment some of your observations, as someone who
participated on the seminar and who organized it in FGV.

On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 3:22 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> 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.
>

First of all, some background information is important. The idea to organize
the meeting was firstly raised by Brazil during the CSTD meeting in May
(although funding was only secured in July), in a conversation with the
governments of India and South Africa, and with civil society from Brazil
and India who were there. The main goals of the meeting were to identify
main policy and regulatory issues that should be seen as priority by the
actors from the three countries and to discuss institutional changes,
especially enhanced cooperation. The evaluation back then was that if IBSA
countries would like to discuss EC in CSTD and elsewhere, then some clear
proposal would have to be advanced, so it can be properly debated. Nowadays
people are either ignoring the topic (despite the clear mandate from Tunis)
or advocating it vaguely, and this is leading discussions nowhere.

The seminar was very useful to air positions and to understand expectations.
With the help of these exchanges, I personally hope that a clear proposal on
EC will emerge by September, so it can be discussed by all those interested.
The statement summarizes general ideas so I don't think we could possibly
have enough information to judge the future proposal from IBSA right now.

> ****
>
> ** **
>
> 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.
>

I don't think this analysis is accurate because:
1) India and Brazil have supported the IGF, not only being host countries
and active participants in subsequent meetings, but also by making
suggestions for strengthening the IGF in CSTD WG. You are certainly aware
that the more comprehensive proposal to enhance the IGF has been advanced by
India, reason why the IGC is organizing a workshop to discuss IGF
improvement based on the Indian proposal. And you also know that US was
against the continuation of the working group on IGF improvements, according
their letter, published in CSTD website, and we all know that IGF's
improvements are very important to strengthen its role and legitimacy.

2) During the next IGF, government representatives have accepted to take
part in several workshops organized by CS that are discussing IGF
improvement, when they will certainly be able to talk about IBSA's aims.  So
the discussion will not bypass the IGF as you said. I hope you will be there
to raise your issues.

3) I can speak only for the context in Brazil, but I believe it is fair to
mention that some civil society, business and academic organizations has
been consulted and involved in policy development by the Ministry of
External relations. Periodic meetings took place to listen to
non-governemental actors before the government adopted their positions in
ICANN and IGF. Naturally, this does not mean positions will always coincide
and when disagreements emerge we deal with them. But this shows the level of
transparency and the good dialogue that we have achieved internally.

I hope that you have the same opportunity to approach the US government on
IG matters, and that others on this list have the same opportunity to
approach the european commission. Maybe we would have less secret documents
and negotiations, which were certainly not multistakehoder.

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.
>

Here I dont really understand your point. IBSA proposal has to be developed
by IBSA actors, as the EU proposal needs to be developed by EU, etc. The
important thing if that it is done is an open and participatory way.

> ****
>
> ** **
>
> 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.
>

Here maybe some background information is missing. In the case of IBSA
seminar, the governments were the first ones to say they wanted a
multistakeholder meeting, back in CSTD. And although governments and civil
society were the predominant participants, the meeting was open to all those
who wished to participate. Some CS participants from South Africa and India
were sponsored to come.  So IBSA sent a message they would like to create a
multistakeholder dialogue between non-governmental actors from the three
countries, although the mobilization of stakeholders needs to be improved.

> ****
>
> ** **
>
> 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.
>

I am not aware of discussions during the drafting of this statement, but
what was said during the seminar was that 3 out of 4 models advanced by WGIG
mention a new body and some of them get into details about it, so any
proposal on EC should not start from zero, bur review the models discussed
during WGIG.

> ****
>
> ** **
>
> 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. ****
>
> **
>
Again, all I can say was that during the seminar the need to develop policy
and regulation were mentioned and the need to protect rights was also
raised. And there was predominant support for a multistakeholder mechanism
of enhanced cooperation, although we need to see very carefully if and how
MS participation will be put on paper when their proposal is advanced.

> **
>
> 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.
>

Just a small comment, for the sake of clarity: the oversight would be
performed by the new body, not by IBSA. And during seminar discussions, most
of these organizations were not mentioned. It had nothing to do with
oversight of content providers and mobile.
I understand if you disagree with the proposal of oversight or if you
believe that any new body should be created. People on the list have
advanced arguments on both sides. But you cannot say that the reasons have
not been advanced by them. Just read the statements IBSA produced so far.

> ****
>
> ** **
>
> 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.****
>
> **
>
I think that it is very positive to discuss sensitive topics in a
mulstistakeholder and transparent way, and was the case in the seminar. This
is different from the bahavior that has been adopted elsewhere, we should
acknowledge that. And applause or rejection usually comes after the idea is
fully presented, when things are made clear, and not before.

Best wishes,
Marília

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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-- 
Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade
FGV Direito Rio

Center for Technology and Society
Getulio Vargas Foundation
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
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