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

[parminder]

Milton

Your email below makes some very important points. Will respond to few 
of them now, and others in a while....

On Thursday 04 April 2013 02:32 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
> <snip>
>
> It is not just about "public representation" because that may imply a 
> standard legislative structure with traditional forms of political 
> authority but expanded, frighteningly, to a global scope. There are 
> large parts of the internet, possibly all of it, that should not be 
> governed via that paradigm at all.
>
> So there are a wide variety of new institutional mechanisms for 
> aggregating users and suppliers into policy making processes, such as 
> networked cooperation among ISPs, the mechanisms used by RIRs to elect 
> their ACs and Boards,
>

Aggregation of user and suppliers based governance mechanism can 
addressed some limited issues, they are quite inappropriate for larger 
public policy resolution, certainly very much so when political economy 
considerations are involved.

> <snip>
>
> We may have a conceptual disconnect here if, when you talk about 
> "representatives of the global public," you are talking about a 
> single, hierarchical global legislative - regulatory agency that 
> covers all aspects of "the internet." No system of representation is 
> going to make that a good idea.
>
Not necessarily.... it can and should be much more complex - federated, 
distributed and networked in different forms.... for instance I agree 
that the ICANN system need not be replaced, but merely evolved, for CIR 
management functions.

> To me it is first a question of what authority the process has, how it 
> gets that authority and how it is scoped, the degree to which it is 
> voluntary or hierarchical, subject to market discipline, or choice, or 
> not. Those things are primary. Then you can tackle questions about 
> representation.
>

Governance systems to be subject first to principles of (1) 'degree to 
which it is voluntary' and (2) 'market discipline' before one can tackle 
'questions of representation' is one of the clearest statements of 
neoliberal governace that I have seen here in some time . No, I dont 
agree to this basic political philosophy, and I understand that most of 
our differences come from this basic disagreement. Basic equity and 
social justice cannot be obtained for this world through voluntary 
governance systems subject primarily to market discipline.

> But to give you a more specific response, I was and still am an 
> advocate of publicly elected ICANN board members. I see no reason why 
> simple electoral democracy, with some  structural safeguards such as 
> regional distribution, should not be used for the board. The standard 
> risks and problems with direct democracy are limited because of the 
> limited scope of ICANN's authority. ICANN would still need a better 
> "constitution" delimiting its authority, and it may well be that the 
> best place to get that constitution in the current world is from an 
> intergovernmental process involving international law with MS 
> participation in its negotiation.
>

Agree. I think the basic ICANN system should stay as it is, with its 
larger remit and policy directions provided by international law. What 
you are proposing is a kind of an inter government convention arrived at 
with multi stakeholder participation, for instance the manner in which 
the recent UN convention on disability was arrived at... Lets work on 
this area of possible agreement.

> And not all MS participation has to be "representative" - it can also 
> be organized along the lines of the traditional Internet institutions, 
> i.e., open participation by individuals who represent only themselves. 
> Indeed, as a principle the governing well-defined sectors that require 
> specialized knowledge, that can be a very good method.
>

Specialised knowledge based governance is appropriate only for some 
narrow technical areas, like in the IETF.... larger political governance 
is based on representation and not 'knowledge' .

>
> All businesses should be expropriated and replaced by the dictatorship 
> of the public interest advocates, in line with the precepts of 
> Parminder-Gurstein thought!
>
> Just kidding.
>
> (Had you there for a moment, no?)
>

In fact the opposite is true. The current paradigm of democratic 
systems, as practised by most democracies, allow a range of political 
philosophies to find expression, and possible obtain 'political power'. 
Rightist as well as leftist groups can come to power and exercise 
respective political philosophies.  However the kind of voluntary and 
apriori market discipline based (whatever it means)  systems that you 
advocate locks-in the 'Milton' variety of political thinking for ever, 
in an irreplaceable way.... that is neo-liberal dictatorship - much more 
insidious in many ways than the traditional  dictatorhsips - where at 
least the 'enemy' and thus the target of change was rather clear..... 
Here, in neolib dictatorship it is rather more complex and hidden, 
networked, if you like it that way :)....


> Not all governance is about voting. Markets are a form of governance, 
> one that works well in many, many contexts.
>

Well, that kind of conceptual/ category elasticity is not very useful... 
That way everything is in some measure everything else. Many in fact see 
political governance as the other of 'markets' and thus complimentary to 
each other in human affairs, rather than one being a form of other.... 
Sorry, that is simply pushing the above neolib form of governance thing.
>
> Where general public input is needed, the "open participation by 
> individuals" paradigm does not need to distinguish representation by 
> status. I do not favor corporatist models that try to assign a certain 
> number of representative slots to people based on some category such 
> as "business," "labor" "civil society" or whatever.
>

Agree.
>
> However, some aspects of governance _/can/_ actually best be governed 
> through industry associations where  there is a direct alignment 
> between the economic stakes of the actors and the effectiveness of the 
> overall system. The administration of credit card number assignments, 
> for example, is handled perfectly well by a self-governing industry 
> association. Of course, it is also possible that such systems become 
> cartels or have other adverse public interest effects and need to be 
> broken up or regulated opened up to broader public participation.
>
> */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? /**//*
>
> My point of reference, again, is the individual. In that respect all 
> individuals are equal.
>

Important point, and I agree. MS-ists may please note.
>
>
> */Then perhaps US congress' decisions taken without consulting your 
> university may also be considered non binding by your university. /**//*
>
> No, because we live under the political authority of the US federal 
> government and have some opportunity to participate in selecting the 
> congress's members. I do not, however, have any representation in the 
> 30 African governments, dozens of European governments, China, Asian 
> countries, etc. who negotiated the WSIS documents.
>

Oh, really! :) / And what about lack of representation of all the people 
from all non US countries in so much in this world that gets done 
unilaterally by the US government.
.
>
> 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.
>
> No. their mandate should remain limited.
>
> Most of the issues you list can be handled via standard national 
> regulatory processes. Certainly NN can be and is being so handled. The 
> one clear exception might be cybersecurity, we may need new 
> institutional arramgenets for that; privacy/dp may also be an 
> exception, although there are extensive and quite vigorous national 
> and supra-national regulatory institutions (EC) around that so it 
> probably is not an exception.
>

A Council of Europe document, in preparing which Wolfgang and Bertrand 
participated, lays out of a lot of Internet related public policy issues 
that are indeed, and somewhat inherently, global . This will be much 
more so when the cloud computing paradigm fully takes over. We cannot 
wipe out this patent fact for political convenience. That is what the 
process of 'enhanced cooperation' is all about. How does the world 
collectively address these pressing global policy issues. And real 
doable insitutional proposals are needed, becuase the problems that are 
faced are here and now, and rather severe.

parminder



> 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.
>
> Agreed.
>
> 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.
>
> By "Again," are you referring to the fact that you've asked me this 
> question about 3 times before and I have put before you a fairly 
> detailed proposal in response each time, based on the IGP response to 
> the 2009 NTIA RFC?? Forgive me if I pass up another round.
>
>
>
>
>
>

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