[governance] Position by IT for Change and some other NGOs on enhanced cooperation

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Valeria, thanks for explaining why apc will not sign the it 4 change statement. 

However the best bits statement too quotes a need to create an international techno political body to carry out an oversight role over icann, but this too is fraught with the same risks you point out in the IT 4 change proposal as you describe in point 3 of your note below. 

I do agree it is a much more nuanced way to achieve a diminution of US control and oversight over icann, but it again has much the same risks as a new UN agency does

That paragraph is the one reason I find myself unable to endorse the bestbits proposal 

Thanks 
--srs

-------- Original message --------
From: Valeria Betancourt <valeriab at apc.org> 
Date: 08/30/2013  8:05 PM  (GMT+05:30) 
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org 
Subject: Re: [governance] Position by IT for Change and some other NGOs on enhanced cooperation 
 
Dear Parminder and all, 

We are busy compiling an APC's network response and we will submit our own statement.  We will also endorse the Best Bits statement, to which we contributed to. 

While we appreciate the effort that has gone into it and many of the points raised, APC will not endorse the IT for Change statement.  APC members are independent so while some individual APC members might endorse it, APC as an organisation won't.  Some of the main reasons why we have made that decision are explained at the end of this message. We thought it is useful to share our thinking in these space as a contribution to the debate. 

Best, 

Valeria 
------------------------

* The basic case for "global governance of the Internet" is simply not made. The evidence for the proposed new mechanisms is weak, laden with polemic, and with a political bias that is not corrected by balanced,
judicious weighing of options nor informed by practical experience (this in relation to ICANN and the technical community in particular).

* The statement takes government and an internet-centric approach to policy making and suggests that a global internet policy making framework convention and new body is desirable. This overlooks and would
undermine the many other approaches to policy making currently mandated by international law including rights based, environmental, and development among others. we have seen in the intellectual property field, for example, what happens when UN bodies are set up with topic specific mandates for global related policy issues.

* To place the internet as the centre for public policy making is a grave conceptual error in our view -rather a better conceptual approach is to focus on internet related aspects of policy issues (such as health, education, discrimination, access, telecommunciations policy and so on). Even better, to put people at the centre of policy making. We must never forget that the internet does not exist in a parallel dimension. Nor can internet policy. Creating a new UN body to focus on internet policy and identifying which issues it should deal with is not going to be sustainable, or effective. The internet touches on so many issues that no single policy space could ever effectively deal with them all.

* The imposition of a new global internet policy framework determined and agreed by governments - and therefore being a top down and central mechanism - contradicts the bottom-up multi-stakeholder principles of
policy making and end to end principles of internet architecture: it's just wrong. This is not to say that multi-stakeholder policy processes are not flawed and still producing outcomes that reflect the interest of those with power and resources. But creating new frameworks and bodies will not address this automatically.

* Most international agreements set MINIMUM standards because governments generally can only agree on the lowest common denominator - apart from generally resulting in inadequate policy, it also risks back- tracking on the existing points of agreement in the Tunis Agenda.

* The statement proposes a new framework convention similar to the convention on climate change. Such conventions are inevitably negotiated and agreed by governments and not multi-stakeholder. in addition, the
inequalities between States (a key source of friction in current arrangements) will not be solved by the creation of new mechanisms which the same States need to agree on - inevitably the politics simply transfer, Rather than propose a new convention (most take between 5-10 years to negotiate, assuming agreement can be reached), it would be better to empower and strengthen existing mechanisms - more ideas on
that separately. APC proposed a framework convention of this nature immediately after Tunis in 2005. But after our work on the 'code of good practice' for internet governance during which we looked closely at environmental and climate change policy processes, and our experience in observing governments in the CSTD when they try to negotiate an annual resolution on WSIS follow up we decided against this.

* Finally, the focus on global internet public policy undermines the role of national and regional IGFs and policy making processes many of which have quite different politics and are still evolving to suit their conditions. Not all these processes are inclusive, or even legitimate, but they are not going to be fixed from above by new agreements negotiated by governments.

* On balance, then, we think more work is needed to develop options which suit civil society and empower civil society as stakeholders in policy making and that systematically try to consolidate current achievements with regard to human rights on the internet in, for example, the Human Rights Council.


On 28/08/2013, at 5:53, parminder wrote:

Dear All

IT for Change and some other NGOs plan to forward the following position to the UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. Preceding the position statement is a covering letter seeking support. You are welcome to support this position any time before 12 noon GMT on 31st Aug. We are happy to provide any additional information/ clarification etc. Also happy to otherwise discuss this position, and its different elements. We are motivated by the need to come up with precise and clear institutional options at this stage. Politics of inertia and not doing anything just serves the status quo. These may not be the best institutional options, and we are ready to enter into discussion with other groups on what instead would be the better options. But, again, not doing anything is, in our opinion, would be detrimental to global public interest. 

The web link to this position is at http://www.itforchange.net/civil_society_input_to_the_UN_Working_Group_for_global_governance_of_the_Internet .

parminder 


Covering letter / Background

In May 2012, more than 60 civil society organisations and several individuals participated in a campaign for 'democratising the global governance of the Internet'. A joint letter signed by the participants of this campaign inter alia asked for setting up a UN Working Group towards this objective. Such a Working Group was set up and has now asked for public inputs to formulate its recommendations. 

In our joint letter, we had proposed some outlines for reforming the current global governance architecture of the Internet. Time has come now to make more clear and specific recommendations of the actual institutional mechanism that we need. With most governments more worried about their narrow geopolitical interests and relationships with individual countries, it falls upon the civil society to be bold and forward looking and put precise proposals on the table that can then be taken forward by state actors. 

In a post-Snowden world, there is deep discomfort among almost all countries, other than the US, with the manner in which the global    Internet is run and is evolving. The need for some global norms, principles, rules, and necessary governance mechanisms for the global Internet is being felt now as never before. The Internet can no longer remain anchored to the political and business interests of one country, or to serving global capital, as it is at present. As a global commons, it is our collective democratic right and responsibility to participate in the governance of the Internet, so that it can become a vehicle for greater prosperity, equity and social justice for all.

We seek your support to join us in proposing the enclosed document as an input to the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. The Working Group has sought public inputs through a questionnaire which can be seen at http://unctad.org/en/Pages/CSTD.aspx . The most important question is at number 8, which seeks input with regard to precise mechanism(s) that are required. Our response will mostly address this all-important question. (You are also encouraged to, separately, give a fuller response to the questionnaire on your behalf or on behalf of your organization.) We will also like to give wide media publicity to this civil society statement .

We will be glad if you can send your response to us before the 30th of August. We are of course happy to respond to any clarification or additional information that you may want to seek in the above regard. Please also circulate this to others who you think may want to participate in this initiative. The global Internet governance space seems to be dominated by those who push for neoliberal models of governance. We must therefore have as many voices heard as possible.

(The statement is cut pasted below this email and may also be seen here )

With best regard,

Parminder


Parminder Jeet Singh
IT for Change
In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net 
T: 00-91-80-26654134 | T: 00-91-80-26536890 | Fax: 00-91-80-41461055
A civil society input to the UN Working Group looking at
institutional mechanisms for global governance of the Internet
(Please write to itfc at itforchange.net before 29th Aug if you will like to endorse this statement)

Why global governance of the Internet?
Internet governance is seen largely in terms of national sovereignty and security or as pertaining to free speech and privacy. We are of the view that there exist many other equally important issues for global Internet governance that arise from the whole gamut of rights and aspirations of people – social, economic, cultural, political and developmental. The relationship of the global Internet to cultural diversity is one example. The Internet increasingly determines not only the global flows of information but also of cultures, and their commodification. No social process is exempt from the influence of the Internet – from education to health and governance. Social systems at national and local levels are being transformed under the influence of the global Internet.
Instead of decentralizing power, the current structure of the global Internet tends to centralize control in the hands of a small number of companies. Some of these companies have near-monopoly power over key areas of economic and social significance. Therefore, regulation of global Internet business through pertinent competition law, consumer law, open interoperability standards, etc, is becoming a pressing need. Increasing statist controls need to be similarly resisted. With the emergent paradigm of cloud computing presenting the looming prospect of remote management of our digital lives from different 'power centres' across the world, it is inconceivable that we can do without appropriate democratic governance of the global Internet. Post-Snowden, as many countries have begun to contemplate and even embark upon measures for 'digital sovereignty', the only way to preserve a global Internet is through formulating appropriate global norms, principles and rules that will underpin its governance.
Background of this civil society input
A group of over 60 civil society organizations and several individuals, made a statement on 'Democratizing the global governance of the Internet' to the open consultations on 'enhanced cooperation'1 called by the Chair of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) on May 18th, 2012, in Geneva. The statement inter alia sought the setting up of a CSTD Working Group to address this issue. We are happy to note that such a Working Group has been set up and has now called for public inputs to make its recommendations. This document is an input to the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC) on the behalf of the undersigned .
In the aforementioned statement of May 2012, the civil society signatories had called for the following institutional developments to take place in the global Internet governance architecture:
Our demands with respect to 'global' Internet Governance espouse a simple and obvious democratic logic. On the technical governance side, the oversight of the Internet's critical technical and logical infrastructure, at present with the US government, should be transferred to an appropriate, democratic and participative, multi-lateral body, without disturbing the existing distributed architecture of technical governance of the Internet in any significant way. (However, improvements in the technical governance systems are certainly needed.) On the side of larger Internet related public policy-making on global social, economic, cultural and political issues, the OECD-based model of global policy making, as well as the default application of US laws, should be replaced by a new UN-based democratic mechanism. Any such new arrangement should be based on the principle of subsidiarity, and be innovative in terms of its mandate, structure, and functions, to be adequate to the unique requirements of global Internet governance. It must be fully participative of all stakeholders, promoting the democratic and innovative            potential of the Internet.
As the WGEC deliberates on concrete ways to move forward, the time is ripe to propose clear and specific institutional mechanisms for democratizing the global governance of the Internet. We have, therefore, expanded the above demands into specific mechanisms that should be set in place for this purpose.
New global governance mechanisms are needed
We are of the view that it would be useful to have two distinct mechanisms – one that looks at the global Internet-related public policy issues in various social, economic, cultural and political domains, and another that should undertake oversight of the technical and operational functions related to the Internet (basically, replacing the current unilateral oversight of the ICANN2 by the US government). This will require setting up appropriate new global governance bodies as well as a framework of international law to facilitate their work, as follows.
A new UN body for Internet-related public policy issues: An anchor global institution for taking up and addressing various public policy issues pertaining to the Internet in an ongoing manner is urgently required. It can be a committee attached to the UN General Assembly or a more elaborate and relatively autonomous set up linked loosely to the UN (as a specialized UN body). It should have a very strong and institutionalized public consultative mechanism, in the form of stakeholder advisory groups that are selected through formal processes by different stakeholder constituencies, ensuring adequate representativeness. (OECD's Committee on Computer, Information and Communication Policy and India's recent proposal for a UN Committee on Internet-related Policies are two useful, and somewhat similar, models that can be looked at.)
This 'new body' will stay abreast of global Internet-related issues; where necessary, develop international level public policies in the concerned areas; seek appropriate harmonization of national level policies, and; facilitate required treaties, conventions and agreements. It will also have the necessary means to undertake studies and present analyses in different policy areas.
Most Internet-related public policy issues are of a cross-cutting nature, and involve overlaps with mandates of other existing global governance bodies, like WIPO, UNESCO, WTO, UNDP, UNCTAD, ITU and so on. Due to this reason, the proposed new 'body' will establish appropriate relationships with all these other existing bodies, including directing relevant public policy issues to them, receiving their inputs and comments, and itself contributing specific Internet-related perspectives to issues under the purview of these other bodies.
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