[governance] AW: [NCSG-Discuss] Report from the BR meeting local organizing group - Dec 2013

Mon Dec 23 05:04:32 EST 2013

Hi,

thanks Carlos. Very helpful and stimulating. This sounds for me like a reasonable and promising plan. 

One key problem - at least in my eyes - will be to have a good "enhanced communication" among the various committtees, but as long as Harmut is responsible for the "backbone" I am sure that this will be worked out. A man who has organized two wonderful ICANN meetings and one excellent IGF and has access to the president´s office guarantees that this will work. 

Here are six comments:

1. It is important to keep expectations with regard to the outcome on a realistic level. Do not put too much into the conference baskets. It would be a big achievement if the conference could - as already envisaged - work around and adopt two documents: A Multistakeholder Declaration of Principles and a Roadmap for the further evolution of the IG Ecosystem until 2015/2020. 

2. The Conference should be seen as a great opportunity to give a injection into the ongoing process and to channel the direction of the IG discussion into the broader context of multistakehoderism. This "multistakeholder environment" is still unchartered territory and the conference should give a push for more exploration of this "terra incognita". It is important to avoid a constellation "mutilateral vs. multistakeholder". This would end in a confrontational approach and could become counterproductive. It also doesn´t mirror the reality of the existing and evolving IG Eco-System. The conference should not become a boxing event where the "blue corner" fights the "red corner" (some governments vs. a rainbow coalition). The conference should make clear, that the move from an intergovernmental system of the 20th century into a multistakeholder system of the 21st century is a move from Level 1 to Level 2, which means, that the intergovernmental mechanisms do not disappear but are embedded now into a broader environment with more independent (global) players. One can describe this as an evolving multilayer multiplayer mechanism of communication, coordination and collaboration among governmental and non-governmental actors. National sovereignty, national governments and national interests do not disappear, but their execution is more complex and needs additional innovative procedures, interactions and mechanisms. And problems can not been settled anymore by a "one size fits all" approach (by one single committee, switch, king or czar) but only on a case by case basis with the involvement of the affected and concerned parties where for each case the proposed governance mechanism has to be designed individually according to the specific nature of the problem under discussion.

3. There is no need to reinvent the wheel if it comes to the Declaration on Principles. As we have discussed it in Nairobi, Baku and Bali, there are already more than 25 documents, adopted by intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. A rough analysis of those documents show that 80 per cent or more of the principles are the same in all the documents. The problem is that they are either supported by only one stakeholder group or they are limited in their geographical scope. The opportunity here is now to "globalize" and "multistakeholderize" those principle. As long as the principles are "high  level", "general" and "legally non-binding" there should be an opportunity to reach rough consensus among governments, private sector, technical community and civil society where all the stakeholders commit themselves to respect those principles. Such a  "Framework of Committment" could become an important reference document for future political Internet conflicts, similar to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 which is also a legally non-binding document of very high level principles. It took nearly 20 years (until 1966) until the non-binding declaration was "translated" into legally binding language (in form the the two human rights conventions) and another 25 years until more than 150 countries did ratify the two conventions. The devil is in the legal details and the interpretation. So if you want to have rough consensus, keep the devil out, do not go to the details but agree on a high level where everybody can agree. Do the "details" later, but do what you can do now. And be realistic. The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 did not stop violation of human rights. But everybody agrees that this is a very useful and important document. It would be good to have a similar document for the Internet, supported not only by governments (as the Human Rights Declaration) but by all stakeholders, including Google, Facebook, ICANN, IETF, APC and HRW etc.    

4. The Roadmap 2015/2020 should identify areas for action where further efforts to enhance multistakeholder cooperation are needed. The souce of inspiration could be here both the WGIG report from 2005 as well as the list of public policy issues which is discussed at the moment on the UNCSTD WG on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC). This could include also the issues raised by the Montevideo Declaration as "Globalization of ICANN and the IANA Fuction" or "new mechanisms for issues which do not have a natural institutional home".   

5. A key issue is the legitimacy of the Sao Paulo process. This legitimacy comes both from the legitimacy of the involved actors - key governments, key private sector players, key technical groups, key civil society organisations representing the broad variety of different approaches - but also from the openess and full transparency of the process.  Everybody understands that there are technical limitations for the participation both in the preparatory work as well as in the conference itself. However there should be open channels to get as much as possible into this process from the "rest". 

6.  It is also important that the conference is linked to the ongoing IGF process. It would be bad if the Sao Paulo conference would start another additional or new process. This would be a waste of limited resources, lead to more confusion and would undermine the strength and authority the IGF has achieved over the years. As you have noticed, the 2nd Committee of the UNGA has not yet decided about the continuation of the IGF beyond 2015. If there is a strong signal from Sao Paulo that the IGFs from 2016 to 2020 are the crucial checkpoints to measure progress of the Sao Paulo Roadmap (starting with the IGFs 2014 in Istanbul and  2015 in Brazil), this would be very herlpful. 

Best wishes and enjoy your holidays

wolfgang
________________________________

Von: NCSG-Discuss im Auftrag von Carlos A. Afonso
Gesendet: Sa 21.12.2013 17:36
An: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Betreff: [NCSG-Discuss] Report from the BR meeting local organizing group - Dec 2013

Hi people,

This is my quick summary of yesterday's meeting of the local organizing
group (LOG) for the BR meeting. This summary is basically oriented to
civil society but may be useful to all stakeholders. Covers basically
the structure of the committees and includes some other useful info.

I do hope it answers several of the many questions we are receiving.

fraternal regards

--c.a.

================================

1. Co-chairs of the BR Meeting

This is a no-brainer: the BR Meeting will be chaired by Virgilio Almeida
(current chair of CGI.br, and member of Brazil's Ministry of Science,
Technology and Innovation), and Fadi Chehadé.

2. High Level Multistakeholder Committee

The HLMC will be responsible for overseeing the political articulations
and for encouraging the participation of the international community.

It will be composed of government representatives of 12 countries
(precise list still being established by the BR government) plus 12
non-govs, and two representatives of UN agencies to be chosen by the
UNSG. The 12 non-govs include four of each non-gov stakeholder (civil
society, academia/techies, private sector). All of the non-gov, non-UN
stakeholders' names will be brought to the LOG by 1Net. So the HLC will
be composed of 26 people.

The HLMC will have four co-chairs, keeping the multistakeholder balance.
One of the co-chairs will be Brazil's Minister of Communications Paulo
Bernardo.

So civil society needs to indicate to 1Net Steering Committee four
high-level reps as soon as possible.

3. Executive Multistakeholder Committee

The EMC will be responsible for organizing the event, including the
discussion and implementation of the agenda, and the selection of the
participants and the various stakeholders' proposals. The crucial part
of the preparation process resides here, in close coordination with the
Logistics Committee, so people selected for the EMC ought to make
themselves readily available for this challenge.

The LOG has already selected the eight Brazilian members of the EMC.
There will be four co-chairs as well, and names already appointed are
Demi Getschko (CEO of NIC.br) and Raúl Echeberría (to be confirmed, CEO
of LACNIC). A representative of an international agency will be
appointed as well (by the coordinating body of the UN agencies) to
participate.

Like the HLMC, non-gov, non-UN members of the EMC will be brought to the
LOG by 1Net.

For the EMC civil society needs to indicate to 1Net Steering Committee
two names as soon as possible.

4. Logistics and Organizational Committee

The LOC will be co-chaired by Hartmut Glaser, executive secretary of
CGI.br with proven expertise in coordinating the organization of
national and international events. Another co-chair will be indicated by
1Net.

5. Government Advisory Committee

This is in the hands of the BR government who acts as a facilitator and
coordinator. Two co-chairs will be indicated. This committee will be
open to any government who wishes to act in an advisory capacity.

6. Funding

NIC.br will cover about 50% of the meeting's overall costs. The balance
will be share by international participants/sponsors. Contributions from
ICANN and ISOC are expected.

7. Participation

The meeting is to be held at Hotel Transamérica, in São Paulo, fairly
close to NIC.br headquarters (see attached map). The basic distribution
of participants is envisioned approximately as:

450 from govs
500-550 from non-gov, non-UN stakeholders
100 journalists
50 IGOs/UN reps

Inviting participants, or receiving and approving participation
requests, is one of the tasks of the EMC.

8. Expected outcomes as success indicators

- Official launching of a review process of the global IG frameworks/models;

- Development of a set of universally acceptable core of principles for
global IG;

- Tentative draft of a global IG model.

My personal comment: these ambitious outcomes of course involve a lot of
preparatory process work, especially by the Executive Committee. This is
why we need to conclude the nominations asap in order to start the real
work towards the meeting.

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