[governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)

[Norbert Bollow]

Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh at syr.edu> wrote:
> But....while you are positing the essential threat to 'enhanced
> cooperation' on Internet governance being the potential for large
> corporations to have undue sway; others fear governments gaining
> undue sway over Internet governance through 'enhanced cooperation,'
> more.

Yes, absolutely - indeed I was not accurate in that respect. In
future iterations of this argument, I'll be talking about "powerful
stakeholders, such as e.g. corporations with great market power or
government stakeholders who might also be tempted to abuse their
power" rather than just about "powerful companies".

Also, in thinking this through again (in order to double-check whether
I would still arrive at the same conclusion) I realized that it is
sufficient when each stakeholder organization that wants to engage in
the creation of "Enhanced Cooperation" institutions (or other new
Internet governance institutions) has someone on the team who has
understanding and experience of how the robustness of IETF (against
attempts of powerful stakeholders to exercise undue influence) works
in practice. It is not necessary for all members of each stakeholder's
team to have this experience. Governments and large corporations
should not find it too hard to extend their team by one, if necessary
hiring someone with this expertise to assist and advise them. (For
civil society organizations funding challenges are potentially more
severe of course, but here the chances are bigger that this expertise
is there already.)

> And yes W3C is indeed more of a closed shop where large corporations
> do have a lot of sway, point taken. And I have a few favorite
> stories demonstrating your point that IETF has been generally
> speaking, very effective over the years in preventing businesses,
> and governments, to push it around, which we might discuss over a
> beer some day but not on the list.

Sounds great! Will you be at the Baku IGF?

> Which perhaps gets us back to Anriette, Bertrand, and Izumi's
> comments, noting that if we can't agree on what the problem is, then
> it's hard to design a working group to address it.

If I understood them right, the point which they have been making
is primarily that in the absence of any agreement on what the
substantive problem areas are that shall be addressed, it is hard to
establish a working group that can go forward. That is in my eyes a
valid and important point. Even if the working group would at first
only debate matters of procedure (such as what kind of procedures und
institutions will be robust enough against attempted abuses of power
by powerful stakeholders) it is important from a human perspective to
know what the substantive topic areas are that are ultimately intended
to be addressed. Otherwise the participants in debates about procedures
and institutions will not be able to remain motivated and engaged for
as long as necessary.

It seems to me that the concerns about risks of undue influence from
powerful stakeholders have a lot to do with the difficulty of
agreeing about any substantive problem area that it should be
addressed by a formalized "Enhanced Cooperation" process: Until
there is a strong expectation that a formalized "Enhanced Cooperation"
process will be robust against undue influence from powerful
stakeholders with opposed interests, nobody in their right mind will
agree with any important area of Internet governance being made
subject to that formalized "Enhanced Cooperation" process.

So I would suggest that the way forward will have to involve proposals
of concrete substantive topic areas to be addressed by the "Enhanced
Cooperation" process and its institutions, together with a strong
commitment to seek, through true multistakeholder discussions, a good
way to model this "Enhanced Cooperation" process on how things work in
the IETF.

Greetings,
Norbert

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