[governance] Update from today's MAG call

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Some of this just doesn't compute.  The agenda was shaped by consensus achieved by a rather diverse spectrum of organizations, not all of which have been known to move in lockstep with each other.

In a shared decision making environment, hostility and a divisive agenda - not to mention a "they are all against me" complex like I see expressed below aren't exactly the best drivers for any kind of consensus building.  

--srs (iPad)

On 06-Aug-2013, at 17:22, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org> wrote:

> 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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