[governance] China's next-generation internet is a world-beater - tech - 10 March 2013 - New Scientist

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Inline responses below
On 13 Mar 2013, at 08:25, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday 13 March 2013 11:51 AM, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
>> <SNIP>
>> 
>> Let's accept for the moment that what you say is a true statement. Why would you see treaty-making as likely to counter these impacts, given the scenario you posit? In fact, a treaty, in this case, would be likely to cast in stone the very inequalities and dangers that you see.
> 
> What do you think of various human rights instruments, that were globally negotiated, in times much worse than today. How do you explain them? 

That justifies my point perfectly actually: they were negotiated following general warfare, which is my point: only at such junctures is the global community able to create rules which are really new. At other points, the only rules created are small incremental evolutions.

>> Treaty-making, in my 20+ years of experience, is largely a codification of existing practice, not an evolution to create a new global situation:
> 
> 
> I dont think we can right now jump into an ominbus Internet treaty, and I am not sure it will  ever be required/ useful. However, we can start will trying to put together some higher level Internet principles.  We can also begin to discuss and try to seek solutions, and as possibly codify them, on emergent issues like cross border data flows, net neutrality, basic content flow and FoE guarantees, regulation of global Internet business, global competition policy frameworks in the Internet space, and so on.

That's already taking place all over the world: there are fierce discussions about all around the world right now, in various aspects of policy development - and I'm not talking just in the traditional Internet organisations, quite the contrary. What are you proposing to add to that existing work that will be profoundly beneficial? Governments who are struggling to define their approaches to these issues at the national level simply will not adopt binding rules at the international level until they have some agreement nationally about what rules they want to have.

> Before that we can and should try to put together a formal place where such  things can actually be codified (other than, say OECD's CCICP) in a democratic manner, if and when there is a political will to do so. But right now the dominant powers, and there numerous supporters, simply refuse to even allow a UN based space to start considering these issues, with a possibility of being able to do something about them. That is the problem right now, and it cant be pushed away by providing generally pessimistic perspectives on the world's political capabilities. 

Why? Why do you think that anyone is going to agree to move trade policy as regards the Internet from trade ministries to somewhere else or someplace else, for example? Irrespective of the value of doing so, it is a complete political non-starter. Do you really think a global body will do better with privacy policy? There is absolutely no consensus even in individual countries about what to do on this, and certainly no cross-national consensus even in relatively homogenous regions.

The vast majority of countries who seem to be in favour of international regulation of privacy, in fact, are also the least democratic. Do you really imagine them getting what they want is likely to lead to more democracy or more individual liberty?

>> governments are simply unwilling to do much that changes their existing legal system profoundly excepting very rarely and then only because of a massive external threat or stress - which the negotiation is designed to deal with. 
> 
> Nick, you are referring to a classical political dilemma, and human race has constantly surprised itself by rising above it and acting collectively in larger public interest. As Hobbes described the human life as

Yes, it does do that - when faced with an existential threat or a major disruption to the established order (note the resistance to financial sector reform in many countries and the slow pace of change there, even with a major disruption.

<snip>

> Everyone around me sees enough problematic aspects of how the Internet is evolving, and they are keen that if possible something should be done about it. Is it not the view of the people you meet?

Not really, no. What the people I meet here in Geneva and elsewhere are concerned with is getting everyone on the Internet, and maximising its value in helping improve the lot of actual people. Relatively few are interested in playing the current zero-sum-governance debate game. Most of the people I meet realise that the Internet is causing major transformational change across all aspects of life and that this is a trend that will continue.

> BTW, did you see the latest Hollywood movie on Lincoln, that great leader of people. Does it not explain how people can actually act what appears to be against their narrow self interest, for a larger good. Why else would a bunch of white American together decide to liberate slaves (the whole movie being about this great phenomenon), and lose on cheap captive labour, and all great enjoyments of life that come with it? Can you explain this phenomenon, and I will explain to you why countries, if put together, can, and will, indeed work out agreements in public interest.

I did, indeed - and I noted that many historians took issue with many aspects of the storyline too. Even Lincoln admitted that freeing the slaves was a deliberate policy choice which helped increase the manpower available to the North while causing disruption in the South due to the incentive it gave to the slaves to rebel and/or run away. 

All this does not diminish the achievement or the statesmanship - but it perfectly illustrates my point, that major shifts in human legal frameworks are preceded by major shifts in society or general warfare - not anticipated by them.

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