[governance] Potential IGC letter to US gov (was Re: NET NEUTRALITY AND MORE)

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Riaz, I find it a bit strange that you say decisions get taken without adequate representation, but please correct me if I am wrong, how many ICANN meetings have you attended and/or used their other participation mechanisms?  If the answer is none, then how do you then argue no representation?

--srs (iPad)

On 29-May-2013, at 3:39, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am sure there are many views. In an evolutionary system this is important. But there is the issue of both a butterfly in the Amazon causing a tornado in China through to determined causation.
> 
> Let me be long duree about this, when we (various groups) became aware of our condition of regulation without representation. Will that do?
> 
> Or perhaps not. Preps for WSIS and post may be more appropriate, when specific concerns were raised and resulted largely in IGF and Enhanced Cooperation.
> 
> And this claim is not such a big deal. When some countries became aware of the horror of war crimes, they set rules. Even if there were none de jure to deal with the terrible holocaust for instance. In more recent times, pollution was mostly territorial. Now there is increasing global recognition of a commons of sorts that needs dealing with from CFCs through to CO2. Elements of national activities have often been transnationalised or multilateralised, with the PSTN or radio spectrum, etc moving to legitimate or legitimated structures. So on climate change (whether one accepts the proposition or not is moot as it is the analogy that is important) the issue is that because hundreds of years of emissions by the rich countries has resulted in global warming that the rich countries should carry the burden of sorting it out. This is precisely not the case. The rich countries will not agree unless the large developing countries also agree. So on a negative externality, we must share the burden. But when it is a positive externality like the internet then similar standards of responsibility do not apply. The same story applies to intellectual property rights - rich countries can use flexibilities but poor countries can't. The discourse fits into a pattern so familiar to the third world that one would have to be blind not to see it because of its repetition.
> 
> But let me not stop here. Because politically the point is that one can't interfere with CIR cos it will break the internet. Even arguments about legitmated control over current structures was not and is not acceptable. This point was well covered in our discussion on Internationalisation with MM and others, and bears reference here. This was not a reasonable position, but succeeded nevertheless.
> 
> The issue of legitimacy can be confounded. Your sequence runs from legitimate US control to illegitimate US control. But bear in mind that it can run differently, illegitmate control can be made legitimate, for instance when you said even I could be a single rooter on some definition. History is a good guide, but one must not take origins too seriously if the facts/context change - the institution of slavery was continued in the then to be established US by men escaping Europe who wanted to be free - oxymoronic or not? When did it become illegitimate? Hard to say. One gets the feeling now that it is even hard to imagine how it could ever be legitimate, no?
> 
> But this is too much detail. The point is that we (I assume Parminder here, but not necessarily) simply do not decisions taken that affect us without legitimate representation. This is not about liberty (liberty and democracy being movements that are conflated as intellectual movements when they are contingent on the particular circumstances of Europe) but about democracy - equality and participation of the people in decisions. When did this democratic claim become legitimate? Hard to say, but when asserted then it takes on a life of its own - something attested to by ICANN's very own GAC. So the relevant jingle for this diatribe is, no internet regulation without representation.
> 
> And the key point about using an evolutionary approach is fecundity and selection. Institutional fecundity seems to be limited by hegemonic practices of US and its delegated agencies etc.  MS governance is an institutional innovation being trumped, but the same cannot be said for CIR. Being committed to evolution is a qualitative question that involves multiple avenues of causation from accident to intentional action within its context. Anything less is like making this dynamic process as exciting and distracting as growing ones hair.
> 
> 
> On 2013/05/28 10:41 PM, McTim wrote:
>> Riaz,
>> 
>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Who and where?
>>> If US, as per previous posts, you hold that the US laws are sufficient?
>>> Even if yes, would this be legitimate? Who would confer such legitimacy?
>>> DOC?
>> At what point did the USG involvement in administration of Internet
>> resources become illegitimate?  Certainly, one can't argue that in a
>> completely US funded network of networks research program that a USG
>> role in administration was illegitimate, so it had to be at some point
>> in its evolution.  Can you name that point?
> 
> 
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