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

Thu Mar 14 02:12:40 EDT 2013

On Wednesday 13 March 2013 08:31 PM, William Drake wrote:
> Hi P
>
> On Mar 13, 2013, at 1:57 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net 
> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>
>> <snip>
>
> You've made clear that you have an issue with industrialized 
> countries, especially the US, engaging in bilateral, regional, and 
> plurilateral agreements.  Although I've never been clear whether the 
> fact that developing countries also do this bothers you as well…India 
> for example is in lots of exclusionary FTAs, and not with the great satan.

Bill

All 'agreements' where unequal power is leveraged to obtain unequal 
gains bother me. Later in the email you speak of India-Bangladesh 
example... Of course there is the 'big brother' problem vis a vis India 
in the sub continent. When I was last in Bangaldesh I was shocked to see 
the local TV mostly full of Indian soap opera. To me the extent of 
domination of these programs appeared too culturally invasive. I later 
heard similar things about Sri Lanka. I would support any steps these 
countries would like to take to limit cultural imports from India to 
safe guard their respective cultures (btw, very penitently, now there is 
a UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of 
Cultural Expressions, which shows the value of multilaterlism in such 
situations). And I would resist if India seeks to use its market size 
and such allurements to browbeat these countries through FTA kind of 
agreements to act in ways that, what these countires otherwise feel, are 
really harmful to their national public interest...

parminder

>
> <snip>
>
> While I favor multilateral to small-n solutions for problems that are 
> truly global in scope,

Internet is truly global in scope, and so must ne its governance..

> I don't think it's empirically supportable to claim that broad ML 
> processes are inherently more consistent with the procedural norms you 
> favor because there are more actors or some greater fealty to 
> principled behavior.  Compare say the UN vs the Europe or the Americas 
> machinery.
>
>> It is also a basic democratic principle; more people/ actors are 
>> involved in decision making more the decisions serve all actors 
>> equally. Bilaterals between a powerful country like the US and a 
>> developing country has strong elements of take it or leave it, and 
>> the competitive fear among the weaker partners of what if other 
>> similarly placed countries enter into similar agreements with the US.
>
> Same goes for bilaterals between say India and Bangledesh?
>
>> Rich country plurilaterals are of course based on commonness of 
>> interests of richer economies with certain structural 
>> characteristics, and their outputs can hardly ever benefit 
>> non-participant developing countries in an equitable manner.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> To the extent multilateral agreements do  have a greater chance of 
>>> being based on higher norms and principles, that is often because 
>>> those higher norms and principles are more squishy and easier to 
>>> arrive at given more complexly divided interests.
>>
>> Dont know whether you consider human rights instruments as just 
>> squishy, but I think they have been and continue to be very useful.
>
> I think international human rights are important, yes
>
>>>  The TA offers a good case in point.  Had that been a plurilateral, 
>>> we might even know what enhanced cooperation means :-)
>>
>> Similarly, WSIS outcome documents contain so many normative 
>> references (see the declaration of principles for instance) that 
>> continue to be useful for progressive causes. You seem to be too 
>> dismissive about such stuff.
>
> I'm not dismissive of the WSIS, please don't start with the putting 
> words in other people's mouths thing yet again
>>
>>> More higher norms and principles is not necessarily a good outcome, 
>>> it depends.
>>
>> They are always a good outcomes. However *only* norms and principles 
>> without work towards their translation into concrete outcomes is not 
>> good.
>>
>> Anyway, in times of such stalemates like the present one in global 
>> IG, there seems to be a great degree of consensus, articulated at 
>> IGFs, mentioned by EU group that met CS reps at Baku, and so on, for 
>> developing principles on which IG could be based..... So, at least if 
>> we focus on the current context higher norms and principles are 
>> certainly not only good outcomes, but very much needed outcomes.
>
> I have supported discussion of principles….
>
> All this seems pretty far from the statements to which I was 
> responding, though...
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Narrower interests and relative power by no means disappear in 
>>> large-n collaborations.  Most multilateral deals are in fact 
>>> clusters of bilateral and plurilateral deals among the most powerful 
>>> and/or motivated by sharply defined interests.  Outsiders then get 
>>> pushed to conform with what these inner circle types have worked 
>>> out.  The problem in trade has been that the identities and mixed 
>>> interest of the inner circles have diversified, and the outsiders 
>>> have found fewer reasons to budge.
>>
>> agree
>>>
>>> Small-N collaborations may devote less time to higher norms and 
>>> principles because they are "nested" agreements.
>>
>> I am speaking of such ones that are not nested agreements, but are 
>> attempts to bypass normally accepted norms and principles at global 
>> level, like TPP and SOPA trying to get away from such higher norms 
>> through small group and closed door agreements.
>
> Will we ever stop hearing SOPA discussed as if it were established 
> policy?  It was proposed by some congress critters under pressure from 
> some lobbyists and was defeated.  By others with "a Northern 
> perspective." The TPP I agree is problematic, but that's got a lot to 
> do with the fact that multilateralism in the WTO has broken down very 
> substantially.  There's a big push here in Europe for a free trade 
> deal with the US on the same grounds.
>
>>
>>>  For example, FTAs at least nominally have to be compatible with the 
>>> WTO instruments (some disagreement about the consistency of 
>>> practice) and so the higher norms and principles spelled out in the 
>>> latter are absent presences in the former.  It's like reading a 
>>> piece of legislation that modifies another piece of legislation that 
>>> is not fully incorporated into the text, you have read the docs back 
>>> and forth to get the full picture.
>>
>> Yes, but they can  go beyond WTO instruments as long as they do not 
>> violate thmn, which in a way itself can be considered  a negation of 
>> a higher order normative agreement reached in negotiating WTO 
>> instruments.
>
> They can go beyond them in depth of liberalization affected through 
> the schedules of commitments, but they have to comport with the 
> fundamental principles of the trade system, e.g. MFN, national 
> treatment, etc. Of course, many trade mavens argue that while this is 
> nominally true, there are incentives there to cheat, and so each such 
> agreement gets looked at closely for exclusionary impact even if 
> there's a lack of declared intent.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Accordingly, while specifics can vary with contexts, global civil 
>>>> society has to make its considered value based choice whether it 
>>>> prefers multilateral agreements or bilateral/ plurilateral ones 
>>>> when the issue is clearly of a global import, like Internet 
>>>> governance is, perhaps like no other issue. In all other areas of 
>>>> global governance, I see a distinct preference in civil society for 
>>>> global agreements in preference to bi/pluri-lateral ones, on issues 
>>>> ranging from trade and IP to climate. 
>>>
>>> I know where you're coming from, but I don't think this necessarily 
>>> follows, or that it's entirely fair to characterize it as a values 
>>> choice (which I guess would mean those focusing on non-multilateral 
>>> are making inferior choices, from a values perspective?).
>>
>> This kind of extreme characterisation can always be used to make the 
>> opposite argument look bad.
>
> It's neither 'extreme' or trying to make your argument look bad.  You 
> said CS has to make its considered value based choice whether it 
> prefers multilateral agreements or bilateral/ plurilateral ones.  So 
> you're saying one should prefer one to the other and its' a matter of 
> values.  And I was simply saying I disagree in that having certain 
> values doesn't necessarily require such a choice, especially when 
> non-ML agreements may have a greater impact on values we care about in 
> some cases...
>
>> I am asking just that the same actors should note resist 
>> multilateralism who merrily go about doing plurilateralism exactly on 
>> the same issues (not to speak of US unilateralism). This is a values 
>> issue and an inferior choice from that standpoint.
>>
>>
>>>  In many case, national and small-n frameworks may have greater on 
>>> the ground impact on the people and values CS is trying to defend, 
>>> so as much as I wish they'd engage more in the multilateral stuff 
>>> (since that's where I live) I'm not prepared to say that they're 
>>> committing a grievous moral or strategic error.
>>
>> Well, they are committing a grievous democratic error, nay mischief, 
>> if (and ony if) 'they' resist mutlilateralism - and I repeat the 
>> above phrase - while merrily doing plurilateralism exactly on the 
>> same issues (not to speak of US unilateralism).
>
> But that's not extreme.
>
> Ok, well I was interested in understanding your original statement
>
>> It is rather well known that multilateral agreements have a greater 
>> chance of being based on higher norms and principles than are 
>> bilateral and plurilateral ones, which are more oriented to narrower 
>> interests (pl refer to the literature on FTAs).  Also, almost always, 
>> bilateral and plurilateral agreements based on 'relative power' 
>> results in greater gains for those who are more powerful, something 
>> which follows from the preceding statement. 
>
> And I think I've got it now.
>
> All the best,
>
> Bill
>

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