[governance] Inquiry for a new vision into the future of IGC

[Norbert Bollow]

Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:

> Particularly, please share your thoughts as to whether, in this
> context of IG or Information Society more broadly, civil society
> needs an analogue to what ICC BASIS
> (http://www.iccwbo.org/advocacy-codes-and-rules/basis/) is doing for
> business, and if so, what this would need to be like.

In order to answer the question whether civil society NEEDs a
coordination function (analogous to how business, or some subset of
business, uses ICC BASIS as its coordination function) we must consider
what will happen if we continue to not have a credible broadly accepted
coordination function.

There will certainly continue to be situations where the organizers of
some important committee have no difficulty in knowing where to go to
for getting representatives of the technical community which is at the
heart of running the Internet's core infrastructure. They also know to
go to ICC BASIS for business representatives.

But where do they go for getting civil society represented???

In my view, the lack of credible broadly accepted civil society
coordination entity cannot continue for much longer without long-term
damage to the influence of civil society as a whole.

So, in my opinion, yes, we absolutely NEED a credible broadly accepted
civil society coordination entity.

What does it need to be like?

I would say that most importantly it must be fair to all the different
viewpoints and perspectives that exist in civil society.

The must be a reasonable process that allows decisions to me made in a
timely manner. 

And there must be a credible appeals procedure.

If IGC is to meet this need, I would suggest that some reform is needed
to enable it for reasonable and reasonably fast decision-making in
regard to all the decisions that need to be made in the context of a
civil society coordination function, while assuring that the personal
biases of the coordinators (let's face it, everyone is biased in some
way or other) don't translate into too much of a corresponding bias of
the coordinating function.

A major plus of IGC is that it already has a credible “appeals team”
structure.

Greetings,
Norbert

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