[governance] "Oversight"

[parminder]

On Saturday 09 June 2012 10:53 PM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>
> Hi Parminder
> How do you propose to convince the US government to agree to giving
> this role out of their hands?
>    

Hi Norbert,

I largely gave my response to this question in my previous email, 
responding to Bill's. We can get some gleanings of the answer if we 
think of the same question in other contexts - why would china and 
russia change their international stances, or ITU reduce its efforts to 
gain more power, just because CS wants it to?

Even a dictator needs and seeks some kind of legitimacy, which comes in 
various forms. On the issue of status quo of US's unilateral 
control/oversight over CIRs, it is the, so called, technical community 
and by large also the 'global' IG related civil society that has 
provided the legitimacy to the present unfair, unjust and undemocratic 
model. If these constituencies and actors withdraw this legitimacy - by 
putting a more democratic model on the table - and speaking and 
advocating about it with the same energy and intent as they do against 
ITU's or China/ Russia's designs - I can assure you that it would 
immediately begin to make a very big difference to the state of the 
global IG play today.

At present, while ITU and a China or Russia has to be rather apologetic 
and even somewhat furtive in putting out their positions, US, with the 
legitimacy it has been able to establish in the tech community and the 
CS is rather blasé about putting out very patently undemocratic and 
unfair propositions in the global governance space. If this legitimacy 
is withdrawn, much can change as a result. Such soft power is all that 
CS has, but we should know how to exercise it effectively.

In fact, if we let US know, regularly and clearly, what we think about 
its global IG positions, it will also give that much more legitimacy and 
strength to our oppositions to positions that come from the other side - 
say, the ITU and some developing countries.

It is for this reason that I had proposed a model that at the same time 
as it seeks internationalisation of CIR oversight also seeks legal 
guarantees to safeguard the basic model of decentralised CIR and tech 
standards model. Presenting such a well rounded proposal/ model which 
does not look partisan and one-sided will help build the legitimacy, and 
thus the strength, of civil society and the IGC.

best regards, parminder


> Greetings,
> Norbert
>
>    
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