[governance] Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG

[Andrea Glorioso]

Dear Anja, dear all,

I'm very late in replying to this thread but I had taken note I *did* want
to reply, as there are some important points being raised here.

For the record, I'm not speaking *on behalf* of the European Commission
right now, although most of what I am saying is based on the official
position of the European Commission on Internet governance, as recently
adopted on 12.2.2014 (Communication on Internet Policy and Governance -
Europe's role in shaping the future of the Internet, available at
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2014:0072:FIN:EN:HTML
).


On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Anja Kovacs <anja at internetdemocracy.in>wrote:

> Dear Michael,
>
> My apologies for the gaps in my replies, it's been a challenge keeping up
> with email this month, but I did still want to respond. Please see inline.
>
>
> On 11 February 2014 18:35, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Anja,
>>
>>
>>
>> Inline...
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Anja Kovacs [mailto:anja at internetdemocracy.in]
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 11, 2014 2:03 AM
>>
>> *To:* michael gurstein
>> *Cc:* Anne Jellema; IGC; Mike Godwin; Gene Kimmelman; Jeremy Malcolm;
>> &lt,bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt,
>> *Subject:* Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Michael,
>>
>> When I talk about decentralisation, this is not simply a vague notion,
>> but a reference to a vision and plan which already consists of several
>> components and is slowly gaining more and more detail. The end goal of this
>> work is to have quite a detailed map. The challenge will be to make sure
>> that everyone has access to that map, but at least (if not more) to the
>> extent that people can find their way in the UN system, I would think we
>> can make sure that people can find their way in this ecosystem as well.
>>
>> *[MG>] I'd be very interested to see this... However, I think it is
>> important to distinguish between decentralization of processes and
>> decentralization of power... the first without the second is simply making
>> busywork...  my feeling is that much of discussion that you are pointing to
>> is concerned with this ...*
>>
>> *Decentralizing/deconcentrating centralized power comes not through
>> decentralizing processes but through challenging and contesting for power -
>> a situation where "decentralization" of one's forces would seem to be a
>> recipe for failure...  *
>>
> [AK]: Yes, that is a good point. But at the same time, I would presume
> that you would also not want that centralised force to be a concentrated
> one (as in, limited to a very few players who then ultimately become
> extremely powerful, be these players from civil society or another
> stakeholder group). Any suggestions then how to strengthen the force, but
> not the concentration?
>

I'm very much looking forward to the (interim) results of Anja's (and I
guess other people's?) work. The notion of a "map" and ways to navigate it
were already raised a number of years ago - including by Switzerland and
the European Union - at one of the various Geneva-based preparatory
meetings. The European Commission discussed it for some time with EU Member
States. It seems to me that there is quite some consensus for this idea.

This is also one of the rationales behind an initiative that the European
Commission has been working on for some time, i.e. the idea of a Global
Internet Policy Observatory (GIPO). I think I have already bothered people
extensively about this, so I will not elaborate too much; this is simply to
say that that in my view it is not sufficient to "build a map", one also
has to design the tools to make sure that the map is updated. In my
experience sustainability has to be in-built in any approach for it to
succeed.

(And by the way and before people jump up and down, GIPO is not a new idea
per se and certainly took inspiration, consciously or unconsciously, by
many people / organisations which are active in the Internet (governance)
space).

On the issue of decentralisation of process / decentralisation of power, I
think it is an important distinction to make; and we would be naive not to
recognise that an often-used tactic by everyone who has power in a
particular moment (which is not only governments or businesses, by the way
- I saw the same technique used by many NGOs, sometimes for meritorious,
sometimes for rather nefarious reasons) is to create "yet another
discussion".

I think a certain dose of duplication and "let's create something new" is
unavoidable as the importance of the Internet grows and is recognised as
such. I also don't think it's necessarily a bad thing - it can also
functions a a counter-weight to the "old boys' / girls' club" mentality.

Call me naive, but I do think that if the right tools to gather / process /
use information are in place, more diversification becomes a tool for
progressive change, not for ossification.

In fact, to the extent that that ecosystem would actually build on the
>> existing UN system (which is an integral part of what we propose), this
>> decentralisation should even make it easier for groups that are not yet
>> involved in Internet governance but that are already involved in particular
>> debates at the global level to find their way to relevant internet
>> governance debates, as those debates would then often come to the venues in
>> which they are already working, rather than these groups having to go and
>> look for these venues and debates.
>>
>> *[MG>] Potentially interesting but again I'd like to see the details*
>>
>> [AK]: Work in progress...
>

Civil servants do not often get to ask this question - we are usually on
the receiving end of (irate) requests to this effect - so pardon me if I
ask: any Estimated Time of Arrival? :)


> Contrary to your claim, such a system, as we also explain in the short
>> paper on our ideas which I have shared earlier, would actually benefit
>> developing country actors - be it governments or civil society - in
>> particular, as for us knowing beforehand that a particular process is going
>> to actually address a particular concern is a far more important factor in
>> deciding whether to invest very limited resources than it is for many
>> developed country actors.
>>
>> *[MG>] Potentially true particularly if there was something more than
>> busywork processes involved in these multiple venues, but again need
>> details... (there were none in the short paper that you pointed to, which was
>> part of the reason for my reacting as I did... *
>>
>> *As an example, the challenge in the WIPO discussions I believe, was to
>> create a real venue for LDC participation and get away from the multiple
>> empty technical and narrowly focused discussions that (were deliberately
>> designed?) to sap the LDC energies and resources... it was only when the
>> LDC's insisted on a specific framework to address their issues that any
>> real progress (from their perspective) was achieved..*
>>
>> [AK]: But isn't this then something that can be done in multiple Internet
> governance venues as well? As I have said before, I really think we have to
> move away from thinking of the Internet as an issue, to thinking of it as a
> space. That is an argument in favour of recognising different venues as
> being the appropriate places to discuss and decide on different Internet
> governance issues. But arguing in favour of such decentralisation doesn't
> stop us from also arguing in favour of an overarching framework that guides
> both the development of this architecture in itself and the processes that
> take place in the various different segments of it.
>

I'm not sure you'll be happy to read this, Anja (just joking :) but this
combination, i.e. (1) moving to issue-based, rather than
organisation-based, approaches; on the basis of (2) collectively developed,
rules-based frameworks for engagement, looks quite similar to the position
of the European Commission as expressed in its Communicaton of 12.2.2014
(see beginning of my email for references). E.g.: "*Stronger interactions
between stakeholders involved in Internet governance should be fostered via
issue-based dialogues, instead of through new bodies. This would allow
relevant stakeholders to address specific challenges across structural and
organisational boundaries. Such arrangements could be inspired by the
distributed architecture of the Internet which should serve as a model for
better interactions between all parties.*"


> In fact, increasingly I am wondering whether, if we want
> multistakeholderism to work, we maybe need something like a Constitution
> for multistakeholder processes - not just a set of principles, but a more
> detailed, binding document that outlines, for example, what kind of
> criteria a particular participant (or at least non-government participant)
> needs to fulfil in order to participate in a particular kind of process
> (and criteria might be a little more open-ended and flexible for some
> processes, more stringent for others, possibly guided by the nature of the
> outcomes of the process in question). If there isn't a document that binds
> us on these things, I can't really see at the moment how we can avoid
> capture.
>

I agree - but, perhaps more importantly, the European Commission also does
agree that more clarity on what we mean by "multistakeholder processes"
would be helpful. See in particular section 5 of the above-mentioned
Communication.

Best,

Andrea
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