[governance] MIPOC - Developing a Policy House

Thu Nov 7 16:42:04 EST 2013

I liked Wolfgang's idea of a Policy Clearing House and acknowledge Jeremy's concept and would like to add my personal views.

The entire landscape, in terms of frequency of meetings needs to be rethought (not referring to ISOC/IETF, ICANN) but more along the lines of the IGF. Currently, the MAG as Programme designers merely assist the Secretariat in the design of the Layout of the IGF helping to ensure that there is a balance of issues. However, the Selection of topics is still subject to the "biases" of its members and often there is a danger of a tacit form of censorship occurring. This is not to say that the MAG has the right to accept, reject workshops so that it conforms to how they collectively think is acceptable for an IGF. The lack of inclusion of Intellectual Property Rights issues in the recent IGF is one notable example. 

The creation of a Clearing House should be to identify existing, current and emerging policy issues and categorise them. The policy categorisation by the WGIG was fantastic and needs to be constantly revised. The clearing house should have a limited role in my view and things developed in it should in no way be forced down to countries and local communities. Noting that countries and regions around the world are at different stages with regards to the IGFs, that is where on one hand you have the Caribbean which has had 9 IGFs longer than the global IGF and other countries just starting out, the bottom up process can be a challenge as there will always be works in progress.

The Clearing house should be free to identify and categorise policy issues coming through both at the IGFs, trickling in from  Regional and National IGFs and also those submitted to the clearing house. One of the foreseeable challenges will be in escalating the issues to appropriate foras such as IETF, ICANN, WIPO, WTO, ITU etc. There will be specific issues that are dependent on timelines and processes within these diverse contexts and as such effectively restrict any notion that the Clearing House nor the IGF would be a decision making body as its virtually impossible.

I support the idea of a Clearing House.

Sent from my iPad

> On Nov 8, 2013, at 3:15 AM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> wrote:
> 
> thx. jeremy. yes i know your propsal and it has my full support. my point is to define tha mandate closer to a clearing-house. more comments later. btw, your proposal is also reflectedvin thecwgec quest. summary. lg w
> 
> 
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Jeremy Malcolm [mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org]
> Gesendet: Do 07.11.2013 12:47
> An: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Kleinwächter, Wolfgang
> Cc: Adam Peake; John Curran; parminder; McTim; Suresh Ramasubramanian; bestbits
> Betreff: Re: [governance] MIPOC
> 
>> On 7 Nov 2013, at 8:49 am, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at MEDIENKOMM.UNI-HALLE.DE> wrote:
>> 
>> However what is missing - in my eyes - is something like a clearing house which identifies the public policy dimension of (new) issues under discussion and helps to find the right procedure to manage those problems on an case by case basis. This could by done via a "Multistakeholder Internet Policy Council" (MIPOC) on top of the IGF. The IGF has a MAG but the MAG is just a programme committtee to prepare the annual IGF meetings. It does not discuss policy issues.
> 
> Note also the quite similar proposal that I put to the WGEC for a Multistakeholder Internet Policy Council, which would be established under the auspices of the IGF. The IGF in plenary session could discuss and agree by rough consensus to forward any proposal to the MIPC for its support. Those proposals could be initiated by IGF Dynamic Coalitions or (to be created) working groups, or by external bodies that hold Open Fora at the IGF, such as the OECD, Council of Europe, etc. 
> 
> This would require reform to the IGF so that its plenary sessions have a more deliberative capacity, and I can expand upon this as necessary, but since the main reform involved here is the new MIPC, I'm going to jump ahead and focus on that instead. 
> 
> The MIPC would be composed of equal numbers of self-selected representatives from each of the stakeholder groups (civil society, private sector, government), plus the cross-cutting technical and academic community constituency, and observers from intergovernmental organisations. They would meet both as a plenary body and as private caucuses for each stakeholder group/constituency. The purpose of the plenary meetings is to bring together points on which all the stakeholder groups can reach consensus, and the purpose of the caucus meetings is because each stakeholder group has its own preferred methods of negotiation and decision-making. A proposal can be sent back and forth between the plenary and the caucuses as many times as necessary to establish either that an overall rough consensus can be reached, or that it can't. 
> 
> For a proposal to be finalised as a recommendation of the IGF (note: not "of the MIPC"), the MIPC has to reach an overall rough consensus on it as assessed by the MIPC chair, which includes rough consensus within each stakeholder group as assessed by the caucus chair. The recommendations would be non-binding, though they could call for the development of binding rules where appropriate, which would generally be at the national level.
> 
> -- 
> Dr Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Policy Officer
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