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

[Andrea Glorioso]

Dear Norbert, dear all,

thanks for your patience in this discussion, which I find extremely useful.
I hope we are not overly boring other participants to the list - if so, the
moderators can let me know and I'll transfer the discussion off-line.

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 7:46 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

>
> In my view, if those specific criteria (which are really a short list
> of topics on which IETF has tried and IMO failed to create good
> solutions) are adopted, as criteria for evaluating "whether the IETF
> is succesful or not", the result of the evaluation must necessarily be
> "IETF is not successful". Which would in my eyes be a ridiculous
> result since IETF has in fact very successfully contributed to making
> the Internet the success that it is today. I would suggest that any
> proposal "to evaluate whether the IETF is succesful or not" is
> fundamentally flawed because it's based on a false dichotomy. In the
> same way, "whether it should be taken as the universal model for
> decisions concerning the Internet, including besides its rather
> technological remit" is IMO a false dichotomy. We can learn from what
> what works in IETF without ideologically taking it as "the universal
> model".
>

First of all, I'm happy we agree the IETF is not and cannot be a "universal
model" for everything under the sun.

Secondly, I disagree with your evaluation of the criteria being proposed,
one of which is the "rate of adoption of IETF standards", if I may
simplify. This is a rather objective criterion, which is very different
from the criterion "rate of adoption of IPv6" (which I agree would be a
clearly biased one). I note there is at least one person in the discussion,
i.e. McTim, who doesn't seem to agree that "adoption of standards" should
be a measure of success of a standards-setting organisation.

Thirdly, I agree that "success" is not a dichotomy and, as someone very
aware of this reality because of my work in a deeply political environment,
I should have been more precise in my wording. Indeed, we can evaluate
success across a range from "utter failure" to "outstanding success" (or we
could use the normal range used in bureacracies when presenting their
results, i.e. from "success" to "outstanding success" :). Such evaluation
can also be measured against different objectives, many of which are
mutually conflicting; and using different criteria.


>  With "absolute openness" I mean the kind of openness that IETF has, a
> kind of openness that has been demonstrated to be practically achievable.
> It is absolute in the sense that IETF is absolutely not creating any
> hurdles of accreditation, registration, paywalls, etc., before someone
> can participate.
>

This point is well conceded. I simply do not like the term "absolute" but
we can safely skip over that.

First of all, what is "my government"? I'm a EU citizen living
> outside the EU, in Switzerland. Maybe "my government" is the
> Swiss government because this is the government that has
> jurisdiction here.
>

As an Italian citizen living in Belgium and partly subject to special rules
due to my status as a EU officer, I sympathise with the question. But there
are rules in place which define who your representatives are in a
particular situation. These rules have nothing to do with Internet
(governance).


> In fact the Swiss government is the government that I have been
> interacting with in trying (to some extent successfully) to
> influence decision-making processes. My lack of Swiss citizenship
> has never been an issue, not even when attending meetings in
> government buildings were you need an explicit invitation and
> you need to present your passport at the door in order to get in.
>
> On the Internet governance issues that I care about, the Swiss
> government doesn't currently seem to have anyone with expert-level
> knowledge of the technical, economic and socio-economic aspects.
> They seem to have only experts on the legal and diplomatic aspects.
>

This is rather surprising to me, as (to name one example) the Swiss
Education and Research Network does have plenty of technical experts and I
know the Swiss government engages in constructive dialogue with them (among
others).

My personal experience with large bureaucracies is that more often than not
the right persons/expertise is there, it's simply not that easy to identify
them - even for insiders!

Perhaps another good effect of any "mapping project" could also be to
highlight where the expertise lies in each administration, and in this way
facilitate exchanges/dialogue.

The problem is that there is a company with strong market power
> which will, on all topics where it might be to their disadvantage
> if the Swiss government had sufficient understanding to make
> informed decisions, muddy the waters by having their lobbyists
> tell the Swiss government half-truths as well complete lies. There
> is no effective means of redress and accountability available against
> this strategy.
>

I do not know enough the Swiss situation to make any assessment.
Half-truths and lies (as well as statistics :) are a fact of life. You can
either conclude that their influence is so strong that any involvement in
political life is useless, and therefore focus your participation in other
settings where (in your opinion) you will find only Truth, Honesty and
Goodwill - the risk being that this new setting is in fact discussing
different stuff and therefore the decisions you care about are still taken
elsewhere.

Or you can accept that this is not a "la-la world" and become a "de facto"
lobbyist yourself (you can even call yourself a "lobbyist in the public
interest" if that makes you feel better). There are many examples at the EU
level of "public service NGOs", such as BEUC (the Bureau of European
Consumer Organisations) and EDRi (the European Digital Rights initiative)
which manage to influence rather succesfully, in my view, EU
decision-making.


> I would envision the body that is modeled on the IETF to not make the
> final decisions, but develop a set of models of potential regulations on
> these topics, with documentation of advantages and drawbacks of each,
> and leave it to the relevant parliaments to make the choice between
> them.
>

Then I must wonder, noting that the European Commission does not have an
official position on this: if the mandate Committe for Internet Related
Policies was modified to take out the "oversight" of standards-setting
bodies (an unfortunate term in my opinion) and the "crisis management"
(which can mean everything and the contrary of everything) would it then be
such a horrible solution to make these pesky governments a bit happier?


> Choices that involve seeking the balance between significant legitimate
> conflicting interests cannot be made by the rough consensus method.
>

We are in very strong agreement on this point. Which however raises the
issue: can the multi-stakeholder model, which in my view (and I'm happy to
stand corrected, perhaps with an agreed definition of what
"multi-stakeholder" actually means) is based on the "rough consensus"
method, ever be used to "seek the balance between significant legitimate
conflicting interests"? (Which, unfortunately, happens to be the daily
bread and butter of governments/public authorities).

Best,

-- 

--
I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it
in mind.
Twitter: @andreaglorioso
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=1749288&trk=tab_pro
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