[governance] U.S. - Japan Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy

Milton L Mueller mueller at syr.edu
Thu Oct 25 16:17:42 EDT 2012


While it is obvious that the Daily Mail article was _not_ an impartial and sober assessment of the situation, it does seem to unearth background documents indicating that the CIRP proposal came from IT4Change, i.e., from Parminder, not from a groundswell of support from "the global South." And it calls into question the degree to which the Rio conference agreed on the proposal, indicating instead that Parminder found it easier to gain the assent of a few governmental officials behind the scenes, than to get broad, democratic support from civil society, the IGF, or other stakeholders.

It is also interesting how quickly Indian ministers, not to mention Brazil and So. Africa., backed down when the proposal was challenged. Since it wasn't their idea, they were unable to defend it. 

A lot of things can be attributed to the power of industry and the U.S., but the lack of support for CIRP is not one of them. There just is no popular support for greater UN involvement in Internet governance. My understanding from various civil society organizations I have met from India is that the CIRP proposal was not popular there, either.  It is all in keeping with my general take on Parminder's ideas, which seek to replay 1970s-era battles between U.S. hegemony and third world sovereignty, with sovereign nation-states being confused with "democracy," at a time when sovereignty is either irrelevant to, or a regressive overlay on, global Internet governance.

As for the assertion that the CIRP proposal had nothing to do with ICANN, it is all on record, it called for domain name registration taxes to fund the thing and contained a statement that it would "coordinate and oversee the bodies responsible for technical and operational functioning of the Internet, including global standards setting."

An accurate description and analysis of the CIRP proposal can be found here. http://www.internetgovernance.org/2011/10/29/a-united-nations-committee-for-internet-related-policies-a-fair-assessment/ 

Milton L. Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Internet Governance Project
http://blog.internetgovernance.org 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-
> request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of McTim
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:12 PM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; parminder
> Subject: Re: [governance] U.S. - Japan Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the
> Internet Economy
> 
> Parminder,
> 
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 3:44 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> wrote:
> >
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > Does anyone here have answers why they remain silent with regard to the
> > active work of rich countries to develop 'global' Internet policy
> > principles, and react so rabidly to any effort at democratising global
> > Internet policy making.
> 
> My reaction is that CIRP was NOT an effort to make policy principles,
> rather an effort
> to make IG LESS democratic (in a top-down gov only style).
> 
> It's clear we see the world differently.
> 
> --
> Cheers,
> 
> McTim
> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
> route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel


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