[governance] Re: On Enhanced Cooperation and the opportunity of a working group

[Izumi AIZU]

Dear Bertrand,

Thank you for sharing this.
At the meeting, I saw some sign of positive convergence to tackle this
difficult problem by articulating what are the real problems in a
mutually agreeable process, in a Working Group form, one way or
another.

In your words,
"setting up of a working group on this topic will only be useful if
its modalities are right and the participants engage in good faith,
fully assuming their responsibilities."

Of course, as I said, devils are in the details and where this WG be
anchored, say under CSTD, UNSG directly (like WGIG), or IGF is one
such devil I think.
But they are not "uncompromiseable" elements, in a larger picture I think.

izumi



2012/5/21 Bertrand de La Chapelle <bdelachapelle at gmail.com>:
> Dear all,
>
> Please find below (and attached in word format) the main points I raised in
> my intervention in the CSTD last friday. I hope they will help in the
> discussions this week that I cannot attend.
>
> Best
>
> Bertrand
>
>
> ON “ENHANCED COOPERATION” AND THE OPPORTUNITY OF A WORKING GROUP
>
> Contribution for the discussions in the CSTD (Comments made in a personal
> capacity, based on the intervention on May 18))
>
>
>
>
>
> Benefits and limits of wording ambiguity
>
>
>
> The formulations around “Enhanced Cooperation” in the Tunis Agenda were
> purposefully ambiguous enough to enable diverging interpretations. It was a
> traditional diplomatic situation enabling closure in Tunis in the absence of
> real consensus.
>
>
>
> The same ambiguity was present at the end of the first phase of WSIS in
> 2003, around the term “Internet Governance” (IG). Two main questions divided
> participants:
>
> is “Internet Governance” limited to infrastructure and critical Internet
> resources (naming and addressing) or does it also cover issues like freedom
> of expression, privacy, cybercrime, etc ?
> should IG remain the province of the technical/business community, or should
> it become the exclusive responsibility of governments, given the importance
> the network now plays in all domains of human activity?
>
>  The creation of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) helped
> address these issues and the definition of IG that it produced clarified
> that:
>
> Internet Governance does cover both Governance OF the Internet and
> Governance ON the Internet (as the Tunis definition addresses “the evolution
> and use of the Internet”
> Internet Governance is neither purely private nor purely intergovernmental,
> but “multi-stakeholder”, involving all categories of stakeholders, with the
> important caveat of the now famous “in their respective roles”
>
>
> Key underlying questions
>
>
> On “Enhanced Cooperation”, parties to the discussion can continue to
> reaffirm their divergent interpretations as they have done for the last
> seven years. But peremptory arguments are disingenuous at best.
> Fundamentally, the debate about “Enhanced Cooperation” is nothing else than
> exploring how to operationalize the definition of Internet Governance, and
> in particular clarify the question of the “respective roles” of the
> different stakeholders.
>
>
> Time has come to dig deeper and have the courage to address head on some of
> the key questions:
>
> what is the scope of Enhanced Cooperation: all of Internet Governance, or
> only some of it ?
> are we talking of Enhanced Cooperation as a single process or structure or
> rather thinking of Enhanced Cooperations in the plural, to address a
> diversity of issues with different mechanisms?
> are the respective roles of the different stakeholders set once and for all,
> or do they vary, for instance according to the issue, the venue and the
> stage of the discussion?
>
>
> Moving forward
>
>
> Such questions – and other – could contribute to a useful framing of the
> debate, but how to move forward? Some actors have proposed the creation of a
> working group, worried that annual sessions such as this year merely produce
> a succession of repetitive statements and no real interaction. Others have
> deep concern that a working group will be a waste of time and resources if
> it is not set up in an appropriate manner and with a clear willingness of
> all parties to move forward.
>
>
>
> Two preliminary conditions
>
>
> Without taking sides, I would like to highlight two elements to feed into
> the CSTD discussions this week on the possible formation of a working group:
>
> experience teaches us that working groups are not efficient without the
> participation of all actors and article 71 of the Tunis Agenda requires it
> for legitimacy on the EC issue; to build on the successful precedent of the
> WSIS, the format of the WGIG should be the reference here, with its balanced
> composition and equal footing of the participants
> secondly, it is essential that appropriate funding is available, without
> which the involvement of participants from developing countries cannot be
> ensured; but the same funders cannot be always called to task: the
> proponents of setting up a group should therefore be able to lead by example
> and put their money where their mouth is; it would be ironic otherwise to
> expect such funding only from countries or actors who do not particularly
> want the setting up of such an effort.
>
>  These two elements – a WGIG format and appropriate funding – are likely to
> be prerequisites for any discussion on setting up a Working Group on
> Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC ?).
>
>
> Further points to address
>
>
> Should those conditions be agreed upon and the CSTD willing to go in the
> direction of setting up such a group, other questions to be explored
> include:
>
> what should be the scope/mandate of such a group? useful suggestions heard
> in the open consultation on May 18 included:
>
> elaborating a better shared understanding of the concept of Enhanced
> Cooperation and the issues it covers
> a mapping exercise of existing instances of Enhanced Cooperation
> an identification of possible principles guiding the setting up of Enhanced
> Cooperation Frameworks
>
> how open such a WG will be and in particular how it will solicit inputs from
> non-members and inform them of its process?
> where such a working group would be attached (proposals include: the Chair
> of the CSTD, the IGF, the UN SG) and who would chair it?
> how such an exercise should leverage/interact with the IGF?
> how and to whom it should report to, and in what form?
>
>  To avoid future misunderstanding, any draft resolution discussed in Geneva
> this week needs to address these issues as clearly as possible.
>
>
> About good faith
>
>
> If an agreement is reached on the creation of a working group and its modus
> operandi, an essential trust-building element is that the governments
> participating in preparing the draft resolution abide later on, in ECOSOC
> and the UNGA, by whatever compromise will have been reached in Geneva.
> Previous instances of reopening painfully agreed upon terms have sapped
> confidence: the word of one government in Geneva should not be different
> from its word in New York.
>
>
>
> Switzerland remarks during the open consultations also need to be kept in
> mind. The price we have all paid for not moving beyond the ambiguous
> formulations of Tunis is that discussion on a process to discuss process (!)
> has prevented actually addressing pressing issues. It is now time to move
> from parallel statements to actual interaction. But the setting up of a
> working group on this topic will only be useful if its modalities are right
> and the participants engage in good faith, fully assuming their
> responsibilities.
>
>
> Hoping this helps.
>
> --

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