[governance] critique of the IBSA proposal

[William Drake]

Hi Marilia

I'm glad to see this initiative finally coming out into the sunlight, as there hasn't been much publicly accessible information on what you folks have been up to.  I've raised it at several events, including a WSIS Forum workshop I organized (which included Alvaro from the Brazilian government), but have been unable to elicit much discussion from any side.  While I don't favor UN-based intergovernmental control, the idea's been floating in the wind and configuring perceptions and dialogue for so long that it would be useful to finally hear the proponents get up in public and make their case about what problems require such a solution, how it could possibly work, why the benefits would outweigh the costs, how consensus could be achieved and how you'd proceed if it cannot, and so on.  That certainly did not happen within the WGIG with respect to the three "oversight" models some of the government reps put on the table (which, BTW, the caucus strongly opposed at the time).  It would be better to finally have an open multistakeholder debate on the merits than for the IBSA governments to take it to their summit and into the UN GA without the benefit of this reality check.

On Sep 18, 2011, at 6:27 AM, Marilia Maciel wrote:
> 
> 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. 

There will be more opportunities than this.  For example, I intend to raise it again in the main session on CIR, which I'm co-moderating with Emily Taylor, and in my workshop on institutional choice in GIG http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/component/chronocontact/?chronoformname=WSProposals2011View&wspid=178, which is a feeder for the CIR session.  Tulika from the Indian government will be speaking on both, as will Alice, Anriette, and Fiona (plus others here who are on or the other, e.g. Avri, Jeanette, Patrik..).  So let's get it out in the open and hear what people have to say either way.  While such a debate will be divisive, a UN GA proposal that hasn't been openly debated would be much more so.

Cheers,

Bill


***************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow
Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
University of Zurich, Switzerland
william.drake at uzh.ch
www.mediachange.ch/people/william-j-drake
www.williamdrake.org
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