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

[William Drake]

Hi Parminder

I was really just wanted to respond to this,

>>> 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. 

which got my attention because what you said was well known seemed contrary to what a lot of international relations mavens think they know.  But now you're bringing us back to your 'if OECD has a committee, why not the UN?' argument, which we've gone through various times previous.  My position remains the same as it has been since 2004: I'd be happy for there to be meaningful, fully multistakeholder working groups operating under the aegis of the IGF capable of analyzing and debating global IG issues and laying out options and even recs where there's consensus.  I'd be less enthused about a model that's intergovernmental with MS input and built as a new thing under DESA or appended to ITU, UNCTAD, etc.  And I too have issues with the minilateral setting of global rules, where this occurs.  I have nothing new to add to either point and am very bandwidth challenged at the moment, but I'm sure we'll have occasion for more cycles on this when the CSTD process gets underway…

Best,

Bill

On Mar 14, 2013, at 11:21 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

> 
> 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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