[governance] IGF and Enhanced Cooperation

[Norbert Bollow]

parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

> I think there are two key sides of the EC issue - (1) on tech gov side, 
> the current unilateral oversight of CIRs is the main issue, and some 
> concerns about capture of tech standards bodies an additional issue (2) 
> on the side of social, eco, cultural policies pertaining to the 
> Internet, with global significance, the kind of work OECD's Committee on 
> ICCP does is the main focus, along with other instances of uni- and 
> pluri-lateralism, and also increasing dominance of private regulation....

I agree that it is important to keep these two aspects in mind, and to
be careful to avoid misunderstandings where some of the participants
in a conversation are thinking about only one of these aspects and other
participants are thinking only about the other of these aspects.

But I don't think that it is a good idea to structure any discussion of
Enhanced Cooperation into first addressing one of these aspects and
then addressing the other aspect.

> If anyone want to suggest some other schema, sure, it is most welcome. 

How about the following?

1. Building a shared understanding of the set of problems for which
   Enhanced Cooperation should provide better solutions

   (a) What is unacceptable / intolerable in the status quo of
       existing Internet governance institutions and processes?

   (b) What are the problems for which the existing Internet
       governance institutions and processes have failed to
       deliver adequate solutions?

   (c) What are the areas in which copperation of countries on
       a smaller than global level (e.g. regional coopration or
       cooperation of countries facing similar economic challenges)
       might be productive?

2. Building a shared understanding of what makes these problems
   difficult

   (a) What has prevented adequate solutions for these problems
       from emerging before now?

   (b) Documentation of the solution attempts that have been
       undertaken so far.

3. Proposals of principles, institutional mechanisms and processes
   for Enhanced Cooperation

   (a) What are the proposals?

   (b) In what ways will these propasals, if implemented, improve
       the situation?

> But we must first develop a basic level of agreement on categories and 
> key issue areas for discussion before we try to seek substantive 
> convergences on the way forward, solutions, appropriate institutional  
> models etc.

There is a lot of truth in this, yes, but on the other hand there
isn't going to be a lot of motivation for working towards agreement
on categories and key issue areas for discussion before there is a
vision, a living hope that it will indeed be possible to achieve
something worthwhile under the theme of "Enhanced Cooperation".

I have this hope now, while before I had this, I didn't have much
interest in participating in a debate on the fundamentals for this.

Greetings,
Norbert


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