AW: [bestbits] [governance] A few notes from the NETmundial phone conference

Fri Nov 7 04:28:42 EST 2014

Hi Deidre,

we should remember the "good old WSIS days". We had a similar situation in Geneva during PrepCom 3 in September 2003 when civil society - which during PrepCom2 and the InterSessional in Paris made some progress in getting access and speaking rights also in working group meetings - were frustrated that the 96 proposals which were made by the CS Content & Themes Group were not reflected in the intergovernmental draft resolution. WSIS I president Sammassekou, a minister from Mali and now a civil society activist, did promise in the beginning of PrepCom3 to move "from turmoil to trust" but civil society argued that this is impossible if "input has no impact". I did oversee a comparative analysis (with 20 students) which compared the CS proposals with the intergovernmental draft declaration and we concluded that 96 percent of the proposals from CS were ignored by the intergovernmental council. We called this ignorance "governmental arrogance" and we had stormy meetings in the CS plenary in our daily morning sessions whether civil society should leave WSIS (and start street protests downtown in Geneva) or stay in the room. CS was split over this issue. At the end of the day we stayed in the room and drafted our own CS declaration which was handed over officially to the president of WSIS I in the closing session. This declaration became something like an official document which is sitll on the WSIS/ITU Website and worth to read. And it had a useful sideeffect: CS became more formally recognized in the second WSIS Phase and got its equal part in the WGIG and later in the IGF MAG and in CSTD Working Groups. 

It would be a pity if we would see now a split of CS moving towards NMI. This would weaken the impact CS can have in the process. I prefer to make my arguments inside the room. I have argued since more than 10 years, that the multistakeholder model works only with a strong CS as an equal parter. Multistakeholder mechanisms are neiter onestakehooder nor bi-stakeholder mechanisms (big government plus big business). It Needs a Balance. Znis is the reason why I use both "respective roles and equal footing" (which was realoized more or less in Dao Paulo). The same with ICANNs multistakeholder model. It works only with a strong ALAC/NCSG/NCUC. There is much more potential for ALAC (and NCSG) after ATLAS II. With other words, our "CS Group of the Five" (CSCG) should have a critical but constructive approach to the NMI. I say this as the co-founder of the Internet Governance Caucus (IGC), now one of the Group of the Five. With regard to NMI: Nothing is here pre-determined. This are empty pages and we can participate in writing good texts (as we did with the Sao Paulo Declaration of Internet Governance Principles (which I know have some weaknesses but are in general a good document with a lot of references to human rights). 

Wolfgang

Jeremy suggests " (From civil society's point of view, we would aim, if we
are to nominate candidates at all, to do so centrally through our IG Civil
Society Coordination Group (CSCG) in order to avoid giving WEF that
power.)" but since the nomination process begins from the individual that
may not be possible. CSCG may make a selection, but still not everyone in
civil society subscribes to the idea of CSCG. And the Netmundial Initiative
isn't clear about the process to demonstrate that one "belongs" to a
particular group.
And what happens if CSCG decides not to be involved?
At a time when civil society needs to search within itself for the areas in
which it can present a united front to defend itself and its rights, it
seems instead to be being split apart and fragmented, and becoming more and
more helpless.
Or perhaps I'm just being pessimistic today :-(
Deirdre

On 6 November 2014 15:21, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

>   Yes - I agree with Jeremy that we really do need to decide within a
> week if we are to participate, and if so how. I notice a few people putting
> names forward on our lists already; if for the next few days we can have
> discussions here and elsewhere as to whether or not to participate, that
> would help to refine an approach and a possible call for nominations in a
> few days.
>
> The NetMundial.org  site is now revised to reflect this new initiative and
> the call for nominations is outlined at
> https://www.netmundial.org/coordination-council-nominations. Names of all
> people nominated are automatically made public immediately -  I think a
> good feature.
>
> CSCG is going to have to make a decision on whether to be involved or not,
> and if so how. To assist this, I think there are many people reading this
> list who listened in on the call - and in some cases were not able to ask
> questions - so it would be good to have feedback on their impressions from
> these people and others.
>
> For me as an individual - I think the concept of a forum to deal with
> orphan issues is good and needed. However, irrespective of how good the
> intentions of WEF ICANN and CGI.br are or are not, there is a substantial
> structural issue if WEF decides who the representatives of civil society
> are. I think they realise they have a problem there as well, and would
> welcome some sort of solution. So I think there is room for us to offer a
> way out of their dilemma. Putting forward nominations may not be the only
> way of doing this.
>
> Ian Peter
>
>
>
>
>
>  *From:* Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, November 07, 2014 5:23 AM
> *To:* bestbits at lists.bestbits.net ; governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> *Subject:* [governance] A few notes from the NETmundial phone conference
>
>  I attended the NETmundial phone conference this morning, interested to
> find out what had changed since the previous launch in August, which had
> drawn criticism not only from civil society but more broadly.
>
> The NETmundial Initiative is presented as not being a centralised
> organisation but rather a platform to support distributed governance of the
> Internet.  It brings together "Enablers" (currently CGI.br, ICANN and WEF)
> and proposed "Solutions".  The solutions can be contributed by anyone in
> crowdsourcing fashion, and can invite partnerships or calls for assistance.
> The focus of the Initiative is on mapping what already exists, and on
> developing solutions where there are gaps.
>
> There have been some changes since what was presented in August, mainly to
> de-emphasise the role of the WEF, which now notionally has its own separate
> but parallel Internet initiative.  However WEF will continue to enjoy a
> permanent seat on the NETmundial Initiative's Coordination Council, and
> contrary to previous indications, the name of the initiative will not be
> changed to remove the reference to "NETmundial".  This is because the
> NETmundial Principles are meant to be the foundation for the Initiative's
> work (I questioned whether this meant that those Principles are set in
> stone, and received an equivocal response that the Initiative might work on
> evolving them if someone proposed this.)
>
> The Coordination Council will contain 25 members, 5 of which are permanent
> seats for CGI.br, WEF, ICANN,
> the I* group, and the IGF MAG.  Note: no permanent seat for civil society,
> except through CGI.br and the IGF.  The other 20 members will be
> distributed across four stakeholder groups which are (1) academia, the
> technical community and foundations, (2) civil society, (3) governments and
> intergovernmental organisations, and (4) the private sector - and across
> all geographical regions.
>
> There was much emphasis on how "bottom up" this initiative is, which drew
> skeptical responses in the webconference chat room.  Although they did
> invite the stakeholder groups to nominate their own representatives,
> ultimately ICANN, WEF and CGI.br together reserved the right to decide
> between them if too many nominations were received.  (From civil society's
> point of view, we would aim, if we are to nominate candidates at all, to do
> so centrally through our IG Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG) in
> order to avoid giving WEF that power.)
>
> Nominations are due within a month, so we really need to decide within a
> week whether we intend to participate at all, and if so, to proceed to a
> nomination process through the CSCG.
>
>   --
> Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Global Policy Analyst
> Electronic Frontier Foundation
> https://eff.org
> jmalcolm at eff.org
>
> Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
>
> :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
>
>
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"The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979

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