AW: [governance] Civil society participation in NMI Coordination committee

Mon Nov 24 14:01:07 EST 2014

Hi Milton,

thanks for this clarifying words and also for the clar statement with regard to the role of governments in IG. As you know I like your book "Networks vs. States" and your Meissen lectures because this is the central conflict of today´s discussiony. The probLem is that your recent staments are used by  some governments to jusify the opposite you want to achieve. This is really a good (and sad) example of unintended side effeets. Some of your comments that the multistakeholder model does not work within ICANN or Net Munidal have got a lot of support in Russia,, China, Saudi Arabia which argue: Look Milton says multistakehiderism is bad an thatswhy we need intergovernmental mechanisms.

I know it is complex. But be careful in what you aer posting.

wolfgang

Carlos
I hope that my abstention from NMI is not interpreted as hostility towards CGI.br or to questions about its legitimacy. There is none of that. 

You are right that before anything can happen someone has to take initiative, and that such initiative is, by definition, taken by specific people without full consultation of everyone about everything. Indeed, Fadi's approach to Brazil that led to the actual Netmundial event was very "top down" but I supported it and so did almost everyone in the NCSG because we realized that an unprecedented opportunity was being seized and a new process was being created that improved things for all of us. 

Remember, I am advocating abstention from this round of the NMI CC, I am not saying it should be destroyed or shunned forever. I just don't see anything new here. I see the usual suspects that I am already engaged with in ICANN and IGF, plus WEF. If I'm going to work with WEF people I want a better idea of who they are and what their agenda is before I commit myself to an institution in which they are the third leg of the stool. I see the CS people who are already deeply embedded in IGF and ICANN getting excited about this, and I see that ICANN and WEF have reached out to those usual suspects and again I ask, "what's new?" 

Is this Onenet v 2.0? There's a certain governance fatigue that sets in. "Hey Milton, please devote another 20 hours/week of your time and labor to another organization built upon almost exactly the same rationale as the IGF, so that it can elevate the same voices saying the same things and continue to marginalize you because you're too liberal and oppositional." :-)

If you read my blog post you know that my objection was not really the composition of the initiative and only marginally its top-down origins but primarily the idea that its ambitions need to be tamed. If Fadi and WEF want to promote the Ilves report, and not the much better documented and well thought out program emanating from IGP ;-), let them. Just don't let them pretend they are speaking for me, or us. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carlos A. Afonso [mailto:ca at cafonso.ca]
> Sent: Monday, November 24, 2014 7:05 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Milton L Mueller
> Subject: Re: [governance] Civil society participation in NMI Coordination
> committee
> 
> Hi MM, my personal comments on your article in IGP regarding NMI. (*)
> 
> First, "inheritance" of the legacy of NM is open -- the decision makers, the
> participants in the IG forums and entities, in summa, the communities
> involved in the processes of developing IG who may want to advance on the
> roadmap or principles would be the "inheritors", I guess.
> The legacy is a proposal for worldwide principles and guidelines for a
> roadmap for these processes. The "inheritors" are not this or that initiative
> or group or stakeholder in particular. We are all free to have as many
> initiatives as we wish (as you actually mention later on in your article), and of
> course be against any of them.
> 
> Regarding your "mocking", which you are free to do as well of course :), I
> guess it takes more than IGP mocking anything to abort it... although of
> course we do need to consider it seriously.
> 
> Sorry, but the fact that a initiative proposes to form a facilitating group does
> not automatically imply it being or staying top-down.
> Actually, I wonder how to you imagine all the entities and forums we have
> involved with IG today were born? IETF, ICANN, EuroDIG just to name a few
> just came to be?
> 
> The actual practice of how the different stakeholders will decide to get
> involved (if they do) and actually do it will define it -- and may even change
> its purpose. So far not a single CS name has been nominated by anyone
> pertaining to the initial group of organizations, and we at CGI.br insist this
> will not happen, despite gossips to the contrary.
> 
> I hope you are aware ISOC decided to publish its board declaration without
> proper bottom-up consultation with its chapters -- which is odd, given that
> ISOC supposedly tries to do everything in a transparent, bottom-up,
> multistakeholder fashion. Since then and after criticism from a number of
> members the CEO has written the ISOC community to say "all doors are
> open" to rediscuss the issue.
> 
> Finally, we all know how it started, but it seems not everyone is aware that
> we (CGI.br) tried hard to reformulate it to make sure we have a chance to
> build a multistakeholder process much along the way we built it for
> NETmundial. We consider it to be clearly in a formative stage. If we do not
> get real multistakeholder support, the initiative as it is proposed today may
> fail, and we (CGI.br) are clearly prepared to recognize its failure if it comes to
> this, and maybe end our participation or try to reorient its purpose.
> 
> fraternal regards
> 
> --c.a.
> 
> ===========
> (*)
> http://www.internetgovernance.org/2014/11/20/nyet-mundial-taming-the-
> ambitions-of-the-weficanncgi-alliance/
> 
> 
> On 11/20/2014 06:31 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
> > IGP has just published a blog post on the topic referenced above (NMI)
> > http://www.internetgovernance.org/2014/11/20/nyet-mundial-taming-
> the-a
> > mbitions-of-the-weficanncgi-alliance/
> >
> > Milton L. Mueller
> > Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor Syracuse University School
> > of Information Studies
> > http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/mueller/Home.html
> >
> >

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