[governance] Re: ITU consultation and open access => IGF working groups

[William Drake]

Hi

On Jul 15, 2012, at 9:52 AM, Avri Doria wrote:
> 
> Great idea.
> 
> We sort f did it in WGIG.  It would be a great recurring exercise for the IGF.
> 
> As for Dynamic Coalitions, do they work, or do we need some new mechanisms?
> 
> On 14 Jul 2012, at 12:41, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
> 
>> During the WGIG time some academics - as Alejandro will remember - started to call for a general becnhmnarking of all - intergovernmental and international - organisations according to criteria like openess, transparency, legitimacy, accountability, membership, acess, diversity, bottom up PDP etc. The analysis was never done. Would be a good subject for Baku or a new "Dynamic Coalition on Transparency and Accountybility of International Internet Organisations".


In 2006 I proposed a working group on this consistent with the TA mandate that IGF "Promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet Governance processes."  I was told in no uncertain terms that this was doubly a non-starter, since a) working groups are a radioactive construct that necessarily implies heavy UN bureaucratic machinery and negotiated outcomes (hence the subsequent DC construct as an anodyne alternative); and b) no private sector, multistakeholder, or intergovernmental institution/process involved in global IG would be happy to have outsiders in the IGF assessing what it does.  Some subsequent beating of the drum and the APC-UNECE-COE effort to devise a code of good practice http://www.apc.org/en/node/9507/ ultimately led to a Main Session on the WSIS principles in Sharm, at which org reps each got up to say that they fully embody the WSIS principles, full stop.  That session was deemed by some to have been less than successful and was hence dropped rather than added into the standard MS rotation like IG4D.

Things have moved on since then and one could argue that it is now time to make a serious effort to put working groups back on the table.  I know this didn't get consensus in the WGIGF but CS could nevertheless flesh out the case for WGs as flexibly configured non-bureaucratic processes that would study and report views (including divergent ones) on pressing issues on which progress cannot be achieved via DCs, particularly in light of generally limited governmental/IO participation.  My top candidates for WGs would be:

*Enhanced Cooperation, per some of the May CSTD interventions, including APC's http://www.apc.org/en/news/enhancing-cooperation-among-stakeholders-internet (much more likely to attract governments etc. than something under IETF, which carries additional internal burdens)

*Embodiment of the WSIS principles in global IG processes/"openess, transparency, legitimacy, accountability, membership, acess, diversity, bottom up PDP "

*IG4D (a similar cross-cutting criteria-based exercise, e.g. as proposed in my chapter in the Sharm book http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/images/2010/book/igf.sharm.book.final.pdf )

Putting the WG construct back on the table for discussion in the MAG and beyond (including at the IGC's Baku workshop) would be a concrete and useful contribution.  Do others here dis/agree?  If the latter, would anyone be willing to collaborate on a text of 3-5 pages laying out the rationale?

Best,

Bill


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