[governance] Fwd: Final composition of the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation

[parminder]

Milton

At the highest level I do agree that there is, to some extent,  a new 
global public made largely possible by the Internet, and corresponding 
to it a new global polity, which are worth conceptualising, and then 
also pursuing at practical levels. I am ready to do both theorising and 
principles building around such an emergent global public and polity 
with you, as well as do thought experiments about how the new political 
structures should and could look like....

Agreed that nation statesd based representation model is imperfect in 
the present circumstances. Additional forms of public representations 
have to explored and developed. But of course these new explorations 
need to be based on some top level principles. The problem is - and I 
have articulated it often - I am yet to hear such top level principles 
for bringing in non nation state based public representative to global 
governance levels. Neither in fact one sees any progress towards 
articulating practical models of what really is meant by when for 
instance Wolfgang says that governments should "share their decision 
making capacity".

At the top principles level, two thing come to my mind very strongly

1) Means of selection of non gov representatives of the 'global public' 
in multistakeholder (MS) processes ( we have seen deep sensitivity in 
this group against discussing such things)

20 Role of businesses or private sector (one cannot understand that if 
business is not given a voting role in national polities, on what basis 
should they get a voting role in global polity, but happy to hear 
justifications)

(Also see inline)

On Sunday 31 March 2013 08:58 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> Avri
>
> As for the CSTD WG EC itself, as one of those who was honored with the 
> choice, what is it this group thinks is important?  I would really 
> like to hear what it is this group thinks needs to be done?
>
> */[Milton L Mueller] Thanks for posing a useful and constructive 
> question in this thread. I will elaborate my thoughts in greater 
> detail in an upcoming blog post analyzing the ITU-SG report for the 
> WTPF. But in a nutshell, I am concerned about the extent to which ITU 
> and certain other advocates of “Enhanced Cooperation” (EC) are 
> emphasizing the definition of “multi-stakeholderism” (MuSH) that 
> emerged from the WSIS – i.e., the definition that reserves policy 
> making authority to sovereigns and relegates the rest of to “our 
> respective roles.” /*
>

/*I have some problem with the WSIS 'respective role' definition but not 
going to the extent of claiming that all stakeholders have the same 
claim to policy making process. Do you say that they an equal role? If 
not what differential role do you see? */
>
> *//*
>
> */While I recognize that these people have the wording of the Tunis 
> Agenda on their side, the TA was in fact a document negotiated by and 
> for states, without civil society or the private sector’s full and 
> equal participation, or consent, and thus imho it has no binding 
> authority on the rest of us./*
>
/*Then perhaps US congress' decisions taken without consulting your 
university may also be considered non binding by your university. */

> */Someone needs to uphold a more consistent and new-polity approach to 
> MuSH which emphasizes the legitimacy and authority of new internet 
> institutions to develop ‘public policy’,/*
>

This is interesting. From below, I understand that by new institutions 
you mean ICANN, RIR etc. I agree with the existing policy making role of 
these institutions, and most developing countires like India also 
agree.... I think it is extremely important we dont confuse narrow 
technical policy role with larger public policy role in non tech areas 
like net neutrality, data protection and privacy, ecommerce taxation, 
cyber security and so on... Are you saying that these new institutions - 
ICANN etc - should have a role in these latter policy areas as well. And 
if so such a role should be equal to that of national governments? Pl be 
explicit about your policy making model,




> */and someone needs to explain to states that their monopoly on 
> “public policy” development in their own jurisdictions does not 
> automatically translate into the same powers transnationally. /*
>

Again very interesting. BTW, at which level does this power of nation 
states cease to be legitimate tran-nationally - at Council of Europe 
level, at OECD level, at Trans Pacific Partnerhsip level...... or is it, 
only at such levels where all countires are treated as peers and equals 
- meaning UN like mutlilateral system. This is an important point of 
clarification....

> */Unless we take a firmer stand on this, I fear that Internet 
> institutions such as the RIRs or ICANN will see it as being in their 
> interests to strike an accommodation with sovereigns to give them veto 
> powers or other forms of arbitrary intervention in putatively 
> bottom-up policy processes (much as ICANN is already doing)./*
>
Yes, we should stand against any form of arbitrary interventions in 
legitimate areas of technical policy making by the ICANN system - and 
the root signing authority of the US government and ICANN's 
answerability to US jurisdiction today are the two most significant 
levers for such 'arbitrary' intervention.

> *//*
>
> */That’s for starters…;-)/*
>
> */Insofar as EC is still about US control of the root – I do think 
> that’s still important, and should not be swept under the rug. As you 
> probably know, I still believe that the answer is not 
> “inter”nationalization but de-nationalization. /*
>
Again , pl propose your model. It is difficult to just stand up in the 
Working Group and say, we want it trans-nationalised, but right now we 
are not sure what is looks like practically. During preceding 
discussions I had suggested a few options.

1- ICANN self declares its independence, and from a given date just 
communicatesd all root changes simultaneously to all root zone 
operators, and let US gov follow other operators in makng the change or 
not (this should go along with better regional distribution of root 
operators). The burden of 'not playing along' will then get put on the 
US gov.

2. Root change authourisation is done by a Global Internet Technical 
Board, whose members are selected in a somewhat transnational manner 
(but not totally separated from national systems - a via media is reached)

in either case, either US agrees to do a host country agreement with 
ICANN, or ICANN moves to a country which is ready to do it.

If these options are 'plain silly' - just anticipating your response - 
please suggest your options of transnationality.

Also, pl suggest separately how democratic public policy in non 
technical areas, as listed above, can be done transnationally.. As I 
have often said, it is these social, economic, cultural policy areas 
that are much more important to be than critical Internet resources 
related policy making.

parminder






-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130401/dad095f9/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t