[governance] WSIS 10+

Anja Kovacs anja at internetdemocracy.in
Tue Aug 5 14:52:01 EDT 2014 

Dear all,

For those who are interested, there is a plenary session on "Developing the
information society beyond 2015: lessons from the WSIS+10 Review and
NETmundial", organised by the Internet Democracy Project, tomorrow, 6
August, at 1 pm IST at the APrIGF. I have pasted the full details of the
plenary below this message.

Remote participation should be available, (see http://2014.rigf.asia/remote/)
though I heard that unfortunately today there were quite a few problems
with it.

And +1 to the proposals to write a letter to the UN Secretary General, as
well as to the USG and, I would propose, to Fadi Chehade, who seems to have
become the undisputed cheerleader of the USG position now that the latter
in many ways stands publicly discredited when it comes to "Internet
freedom" and multistakeholderism.

As for Parminder's question "Did we ever ask for the WSIS model (of course
with evolutionary improvements) for WSIS plus 10 review. No, no one did" -
I thought that I share again this letter that some of us (including some
who have been following the WSIS+10 Review quite closely) wrote to the
facilitators of the governmental negotiation processes in February. I think
it quite clearly disproves the points that Parminder was making in his
message above.

http://internetdemocracy.in/2014/02/letter-to-co-facilitators-calling-for-civil-society-input-into-negotiations-on-wsis10-modalities/

Best regards,
Anja

*Title:* "*Developing the information society beyond 2015: lessons from the
WSIS+10 Review and NETmundial*"

Format: Panel discussion

Invited panelists:

Mr. Adam Peake - GLOCOM
Dr. Anja Kovacs - Internet Democracy Project
Dr. Govind - NIXI
Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri - Bharatiya Janata Party and formerly Government of
India
Mr. Paul Wilson - APNIC
Mr. Rajnesh Singh - ISOC

Moderator: Prof. Ang Peng Hwa - Nanyan Technological University, Singapore

Abstract:

In 2015 the WSIS is up for an overall review. Though strictly speaking the
WSIS was supposed to be about ICTs and development, the Internet governance
issues that are contained in it have obtained a growing role. In fact,
during the multistakeholder WSIS+10 MPP meetings, the debate on many more
'hard core' development issues often seemed to be held hostage to the IG
debate, in that there was a reluctance to agree on new language for fear of
the possible wider implications of such language.

The ICTs for development agenda continues, however, to be of great
importance for many countries in our region. This then raises the question
of how the development agenda contained in the WSIS can be revitalised.
What shape do we want the WSIS agenda and process to take beyond 2015? What
shape do the overall review in 2015 and its preparatory processes need to
take for this to be possible? What lessons can we learn from both the
content and form of discussions at the WSIS+10 MPP and the WGEC to take the
Internet governance debate forward in a way that serves the Asia-Pacific
region and ensures that the development debate can gain greater prominence
again? What role can and do efforts such as the NETmundial, but also
national Internet governance processes play in shaping this?

The session will reflect on our experiences of the past 11 years as part of
the WSIS process to move forward towards a better future, and include a
consideration of lessons learned from multistakeholder processes such as
the NETmundial, the MPP and the WGEC on how to best get the IG part of the
WSIS agenda unstuck.






On 4 August 2014 21:39, Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal <
jc.nothias at theglobaljournal.net> wrote:

> Thanks Daniel, for your point about Democracy. We all agree that Democracy
> is a fragile world that can easily be twisted or lost. It is rather
> difficult to admit that such a failure or loss can be the result of the
> wrong acting by a dominating player, presumably not a rogue state.
>
> Applied to mass surveillance, it seems indeed a good idea to put Democracy
> in practice: a well-balanced (and checked) democratic system allows
> separation of powers (1), and counter-power (2) within its own governing
> system. I am glad to act as a responsible citizen, as you suggest, and
> bring my voice to the protesting ones, but that still sounds a bit naive
> without the two previous settings. So it seems to me that the surveillance
> planet is not a flat one where all countries show the same surveillance
> power and desire. So maybe we should not close our eyes so to pass on from
> on secret to another, concluding that all secret services are equal. I
> don't think secret services are supposed to spy simply every citizen on
> this planet. That was the Stasi dream, or the Stalinist bureaucratic
> terror. In Democracy, where trust and willingness to act together are
> fundamental assets, this is a great loss of taxpayer money. So, please
> allow me to disagree: the US have to prove better, and not worse. See their
> whistleblower new legal vision: a whistleblower should be allowed to speak
> to its boss! This is presented as a progress, when it is just the opposite.
>
> As Internet governance cannot be contained within the boundaries of one
> single country, neither be managed by one single country, how do we deal
> with a democratic approach taking into account the two previous points (1)
> and (2)?
>
> Publicity is a good starting point at citizen level. But CS might push a
> little further its thinking and influence to offer governance innovation to
> politicians if they have some trouble to understand what citizens are
> concerned about, and not just lobbyists or PR consultants are telling them
> over a nice gastronomic table.
>
> Another good point for a good start would be to call a cat a cat: I know
> only one country, moreover a self-proclaimed champion of freedom of speech
> that has the technical power to organize and handle mass surveillance,
> thanks to its dominant private sector champions. So even though we can
> agree on the idea not to play the antagonistic game, we still have to agree
> on definitions and meanings, we still need to have acceptance for diversity
> of views and opinions. We also have to accept to speak truth to power:
> there was no power grab attempt from ITU in December 2012, neither before,
> nor after. And there is still not. The current asymmetry cannot be but
> condemned. And we need more US voices to honestly admit that things have to
> change.
>
> All of that means democracy. To cherish it means to use it.
>
> JC
>
>
> Le 4 août 2014 à 17:04, Daniel Kalchev a écrit :
>
>
> On 04.08.14 12:18, Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal wrote:
>
> Nota Bene: Wolfgang, I hope you noticed that I did not mention the
> troubling fact that the US surveillance of all Internet users browsing and
> emailing over the beautiful unified, un-fragmented Internet under one
> single root-zone management, and of all phone users, including president
> Rousseff, Chancellor Merkel, European diplomats, BRICS diplomats, all
> diplomats, politicians, citizens, that were hostage of the US surveillance
> paranoia and infernalia. We all pay for that.
>
>
> Yes, we do all pay for that.
>
> But then, what can we do to resolve this situation? The US secret services
> agencies will continue to do all of this, no matter what. This is why they
> exist. Most of them run on military style management, and obeying orders is
> mandatory there. The same can be said about the secret services of any
> other country. Or any special interests group.
>
> My experience dealing with this kind of 'operations' is that your working
> route is publicity. Talk about it. Don't let them do it in secret. Cops
> hate being exposed. Let Internet users become aware what is going on. Don't
> waste your time politicizing it, in the sense of "those bad XYZ spying on
> us good ABC", because this is nonsense (and not true in general). If
> Internet users don't mind being subject of surveillance, who are we to
> force them?
>
> If Internet users are so upset about this situation, they as individuals
> having (whatever - voting, buying, etc) power will act up and fix it.
>
> Isn't this how democracy should function? :-)
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
>  So yes let's the CS write to USG and its digital champions. Let's start
> to balance our role.
>
>  That is something everyone has obviously in mind when considering the
> fact that governments are no longer to be seen out of the IG game. One good
> reason to have CS coming strong into the democratic multistakeholder model,
> JNC and others are advocating.
>
>  JC
>
>  Le 4 août 2014 à 10:46, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang a écrit :
>
>
> http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/UN-Adopts-Resolution-on-Bridging-Digital-Divide/852511
>
> Outlook India:
> The resolution decided that the overall review will be concluded in
> December 2015 by a two-day General Assembly high-level meeting to be
> preceded by an inter-governmental preparatory process that also takes into
> account inputs from all relevant stakeholders of WSIS.  The
> intergovernmental negotiation process would begin in June 2015 and lead to
> an inter-governmentally agreed outcome document for adoption at the UNGA
> meeting. The process retains the ownership of the preparatory meetings and
> the final outcome document with member states alone. Mukerji said the
> resolution ensures that leaders, "at the highest possible level" will meet
> at the high-level plenary meeting in December next year to adopt the
> outcome of the intergovernmental negotiations.
>
> Wolfgang:
> One of the big achievements in the WSIS process was that civil society got
> a voice in the process. A Milestone was the CS WSIS Declaratzion from
> December 2003 which was handed over to the president of the first summit,
> WSIS 1. It became an official document. The Tunis Agenda confirmed and
> enhanced the role of civil society. As you can see from the text above, ten
> years later this process is back in the hands of "governments only". The
> final outcome document will be with member states only by taking into
> account inputs from all relevant stakeholders (which sounds like a joke
> with the experiences of a enhanced communicartion and cooperation over the
> last ten years, including the UNCSTD WGs. Should civil society write a
> letter to UN Secretary General Ban Kin Moon?
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-- 
Dr. Anja Kovacs
The Internet Democracy Project

+91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs
www.internetdemocracy.in
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