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

[parminder]

On Thursday 14 March 2013 02:12 PM, William Drake wrote:
> <snip>
>> Bill
>>
>> All 'agreements' where unequal power is leveraged to obtain unequal 
>> gains bother me. (Parminder)
>
> Fair enough, it's a principled stance, albeit one that would seem to 
> require being permanently and pervasively bothered.(Bill)

:) Dear Bill, Living by principles can be a very happy life.... Yes, my 
organisation takes it as a starting point that there is structural 
injustice of very deep and inhuman kind in many if not most of the 
things around us, and we should try to address them in the small ways we 
can. And we constantly check our acts and positions against this - 
whether they are aimed at ameliorating these structural injustices. And 
I have met some of the happiest people I know in this line of work, so 
please do not essentialize. (P)

>  But back to where we started, I recognize that you feel that 
> universal multilateralism is inherently better than smaller-n 
> collaborations, and for certain classes of problems I'd agree with 
> you. (B)

In my earlier email I have clearly stated what kind of uni/ 
pluri-lateralism I resist..... and I quote " The bilateral and 
plurilateral agreements that I problematize are the ones of the typical 
pick and choose variety taken up by counties like the US, and also such 
established plurilateral processes like the OECD that intend to engage 
in 'global' rule making. (There are indeed genuine cultural links based 
grouping like Council of Europe that has done considerable normative work.)"

Is it not clear enough? I have not made exclusive multilateralism an 
article of faith as you allege below. Indeed I think that there should 
be closer trade ties and agreement among South Asian countries (and also 
in other regions). This discussion is in the clear context of the extant 
situation whereby OECD countries for instance do policy work on Internet 
issues in a manner that brings up de facto global rules, but oppose 
multilateral systems to deal with same issues in the same matter... 
Bill, why dont you just discuss this specific issue, rather than we go 
round and round on all possible typifications and peripheral categories 
- which discussion will always be endless.

You recently joined the civil society advisory group of the OECD's 
Committee on Computer,Information and Communication Policy (CCICP) - 
which is OECD's Internet policy related organ. You must be aware that 
there is a clear desire to export OECD recently developed "Principles 
for Internet policy making' to non OECD countries. A great lot of work 
is being done in this committee that you are well aware of which is 
distinctly Internet policy related work...... Why then when we try to 
discuss a similar committee at a multilateral level you seem to come up 
with so many doubts about whether there at all are any Internet policy 
issues that are not already being taken up at other forums and need a 
special Internet policy related committee.

OECD has more than 40 other committees, on trade, IP, practically every 
area of activity for which there is a UN/ muti-lateral body ...... Why 
dont you ever ask the same question to OECD's CCICP about the need for a 
specialised Internet policy related body. And even if you are not into 
question asking, why do you bother - and you have been rather insistent 
- to work with CCICP, when by your logic such a body should in fact not 
be required (the logic you use when we try to discuss a similar body at 
the multilateral level). Are these not obvious questions?

And of course there is the question of multistakeholder participation. 
As you know UN CIRP proposed a stakeholder participation model which is 
distinctly more evolved, and better, that CCICP's. So, why anti 
multistakeholder allegations against UN CIRP and desire to work with 
CCICP. (Lets consider a UN CIRP minus the CIR oversight functions, for 
this discussion, which is also IT for Change's proposal. )

OK, even if you do not want to get into CIRP territory, and we are to 
stick to the plurilateral versus multilateral discussion;

Since we can see that OECD's CICCP deals with Internet policy matters, 
and not only the Internet is essentially global, OECD members have a 
distinct desire to make outputs of CICCP (and CICCP plus processes) into 
*global* rules, and since there is no current multilateral body dealing 
with issues that CICCP deals with, do you agree that a similar body at 
the multilateral / UN level is a good idea, or is indeed very much 
needed. If you do not think so, what are your reasons.

If we pursue these lines we may be more focussed on why 
uni/plurilateralism versus multi-lateralism is being discussed here, and 
our discussions may be more fruitful.

parminder





>  I guess we would disagree on the other classes, and on whether that 
> 'better' also includes by definition a greater propensity to the sort 
> of overarching principles and norms you value and a lower propensity 
> toward power games and relative gains.  On these points I'd argue it's 
> preferable to be guided by empirical analyses than by a priori 
> assumptions, and that whether multilateralism or minilateralism is 
> more functionally effective and politically palatable in a given case 
> may depend on a variety of factors—issue area properties, linkages to 
> other policy spaces, institutional capacity, etc.  Sometimes big just 
> works less well and smaller is more beautiful, and a lot of the effort 
> that's gone into devising more diverse arrangements over the past 30 
> years or 
> so—plurilateral/regional/transgovernmental/public-private/multistakeholder 
> etc—cannot be explained simply as a drive to maximize power and 
> exclude less powerful states, especially insofar as the latter are 
> often participants.  Nor is it necessarily the case that the expansion 
> of architectural options comes in a hard binary way at the expense of 
> multilateral institutions; their roles instead have been rearticulated 
> in a more diverse topography, as per the WTO in a world of varying 
> trade agreements.  Anyway, I'm sure I can't persuade you, but I think 
> it's fair to ask that you not just assume that anyone who expresses 
> reservations about omnibus multilateral 'oversight' etc. must be doing 
> so because they favor imperial power relations and domination etc. If 
> you make absolute fealty to multilateralism an article of faith you're 
> going to be bothered by a lot of colleagues a lot of the time and give 
> short shrift to alternatives that merit due consideration…
>
> Cheers
>
> Bill
>
>

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