[governance] Report from the IGF Open Consultations in Paris

[Norbert Bollow]

William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch> wrote:

> > On the topic of choosing the overall theme for the Bali IGF, a
> > somewhat unpleasant surprise was sprung on us in the form of Markus
> > starting the discussion of this topic by asking whether or not to
> > leave this choice open until after the workshop proposals have come
> > in.
> 
> Sorry you felt unpleasantly surprised, but this was proposed by
> APC/IGC members and enjoyed broad support.

Since this was not suggested in either APC's written contribution nor
in IGC's written contribution, I'm assuming that "this was proposed by
APC/IGC members and enjoyed broad support" refers to a MAG-internal
process".

So in the MAG internally there is broad support for the idea of not
choosing an overall IGF theme until the workshop proposals have come in,
but at the same time those outside the MAG are asked to make written
contributions with "suggestions on themes" being part of what is being
explicitly asked for, and "Discussions on the possible main theme and
sub-themes of IGF 2013" was a main agenda item for the open
consultations ???

Nota bene, there was no agenda item like "Discuss whether the choice
of main theme should be left often until after the workshop proposals
have been received".

In comparison to the other integrity related concerns that I raised,
this is a very minor point, but I still think that it is one that
should not be simply glossed over.

> > In trying to put in this way a bit of emphasis on aspects of
> > integrity, I felt rather alone; it felt like during these
> > consultations, points on the need for integrity were not getting
> > support from anyone else.
> 
> Here I really don't know what you mean.  There was two days of robust
> participation by many people who I believe favor integrity, including
> your CS colleagues.  In what sense were you a lonely voice in the
> wilderness for integrity?
> 
> Just wondering,

The relatively major integrity related points that I raised were:

(1) The theme for the 2012 IGF was wonderfully wordsmithed, but it did
not match the actual substantive content of that IGF meeting (that is
the context in which I explicitly used the word "integrity").

(2) The "Effective Participation of All Stakeholders in Internet
Governance" overall subtheme suggestion from IGC.

(3) "And I would like to note that there is a very strong tradition at
the IGF, especially in recent years, of emphasizing human rights, and
it would be very valuable to take that forward in a more
outcome-oriented and implementation-oriented way, moving it from the
'talking about it' to the 'actually getting it done' stage, and I would
very much appreciate if the program for the IGF specifically encourages
this kind of practical side to it, to move the IGF from being very much
a talk and social event to something that has a very strong practical
policy impact."

(4) I quoted the recommendations of the WG on Internet Improvements
which are asking for explicit outcomes, and pointed out that if such
outcomes are supposed to emerge from the discussions at the IGF, then
that needs to be taken into account in the design of the main sessions
so that what will be written in the outcome document will have
actually emerged from the discussions at the IGF meeting (the
transcript has this as "the structure of the main sessions in the sense
of the sessions that have interpretation should really reflect that the
structure should be chosen so that these outcomes are actually outcomes
of those sessions, so that there should be a deliberative process of the
community of participants in the IGF leading to this outcome").

If any of these points were picked up by other speakers, or if any
other speakers made any similarly specifically integrity oriented
comments, I have missed those comments.

Especially with regard to point (4) I find it worrying that there was
so much discussion about main sessions formats without (as far as I
noticed) anyone besides myself looking at that topic in relation to
the need to having integrity in the process that produces the outcome
documents.

I find this particularly worrying because in view of what went wrong in
the process for producing the WSIS+10 outcome document, it should have
been rather obvious that it is important to pay attention to making
sure that the process for producing the IGF outcome documents will have
integrity.

Greetings,
Norbert

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