[governance] critique of the IBSA proposal

Wed Sep 21 14:43:00 EDT 2011

Having just experienced Murphy's Law of the Internet v1 (computers breakdown
only and as one has begun one's extended travel in places far away from
one's computer service provider) I have had the opportunity of looking
through this extended discussion in the cooler light of a post travel
morning.  

I'm not sure that I have anything new to add to the arguments back and forth
except perhaps to observe that whatever it's flaws, the IBSA proposal at
least takes seriously the need to develop a means to address the issues that
we have been discussing here for the last while i.e. those requiring some
form of framework within which de- or supra-national issues arising from the
increasing use and reliance on the Internet can be resolved and those
resolutions enforced.  And as well, beginning the discussion of how and
where the issues of the national or supra-national interests of dominant
Internet corporations can be responded to by those outside of the charmed
circle of their direct financial or power beneficiaries.

The onus I think is on those who disagree with the IBSA proposal to put
forward alternative strategies for responding to these issues since there
would appear to be a fairly clear consensus that these issues need to be
addressed and a strong argument being put forward through this IBSA proposal
(and the related CS support) that simply relying on the status quo to
respond is to opt clearly and unequivocably for the rule of power and
position rather than the rule either of democracy, equity or justice.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: governance at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf
Of Milton L Mueller
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 11:22 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; parminder
Subject: [governance] critique of the IBSA proposal

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 doesnt. WGIG couldnt 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 dont like. Law on the other hand
provides a framework of clear rules that allows individual actors guidelines
and which also protects freedom. 

And heres 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 worlds 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> 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-ib
sa-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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