[governance] Update from today's MAG call

Jeremy Malcolm jeremy at ciroap.org
Tue Aug 6 07:52:29 EDT 2013


On 05/08/2013, at 2:02 AM, George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I note your sentence below:
>
>> The just-a-conference group have successfully "forced their view" on
>> the others until now, by vetoing changes necessary for the IGF to
>> fulfil the rest of its mandate.
>
> Could you clarify (a) what the rest of the IGF's mandate is, and
> specifically where it is defined, (b) exactly who are members of what
> you call the just-a-conference group is, (c) what the veto mechanism
> is and how it has been use, and (d) based upon the previous responses,
> how responsibility should be distributed for what you appear to
> characterize as failure?

It seems like I've been over this many times before, and I'm actually
curious why you are asking these questions since you surely know the
answers.  So I'll keep it brief.

(a) As you know, the rest of the IGF's mandate is in paragraph 72 of the
Tunis Agenda, and amongst the paragraphs of the mandate that it is
widely agreed have not been fulfilled (citations available, but I
promised brevity) are the finalisation of recommendations (mandate
paragraph 72(g)), interfacing with intergovernmental and other
international organisations at an executive level (paragraph 72(c)) and
assessing the embodiment of the WSIS principles in other Internet
governance institutions (paragraph 72(i)). 

(b) Mainly ISOC (and other technical community), the ICC (and other
private sector) and the USA (and other OECD countries).

(c) From the very first questionnaire on the formation of the IGF, the
agenda was shaped to exclude certain formats and procedures from
consideration, with the object of denying the IGF the organisational
capacity to meet the above paragraphs of its mandate.  Aided by poor
transparency of the MAG and a heavily top-down Secretariat, structural
inertia very quickly set in so that further changes to the IGF suddenly
became "impossible"; even those minor improvements independently
recommended by the CSTD.  The MAG is large, with an over-representation
of technical community representatives, and is chaired by one of their
own, with the result that it continues to be an effective instrument of
the status quo.  IGF critics are generally kept out of the inner circle
- whilst I'm nobody important, I've never been selected for the MAG nor
for any main session.  This could just be coincidence, though it came to
my attention recently that ISOC had specifically vetoed my nomination to
speak at a regional Internet governance meeting, and Michael Gurstein,
as you know, has been treated similarly.  Moreover it wasn't beneath one
individual to spread a false rumour that destroyed one of the dynamic
coalitions that had been advocating for progressive changes to the IGF.

(d) See (b) and (c) above.

-- 

*Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
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