[governance] JNC statement "Governing the global Internet – is the status quo the only option?"

[David Cake]

Indeed. 

The JNC seem very upset that the US has a fair bit of soft power within the Internet governance world, largely as a result of its history of having invented the Internet, having had a historically very successful ICT industry, etc. 

Now, I'm all for criticising the USG for its hypocritical stances on IG related matters (promoting MSism with one hand, policy laundering the demands of the IP lobby in the TTPA etc with the other). And I'm all for removing the historical special role of the USG in the IANA contract etc. But soft power isn't just about the government, but about cultural and political values. The US government may be hypocritical and on occasion somewhat corrupted, but besides capitalism, the cultural and political values of the US include democracy, freedom of speech, etc. I'm not claiming they are consistently manifested, but... it does seem odd that a group that so consistently talks about democracy in its rhetoric, is so keen to decrease the soft power of a democratic nation, in favour of the ITU, a forum in which (as it gives equal status to states regardless of their form of government) nations that are either explicitly undemocratic (KSA, China) or weaker (to the point of lip service only) in their commitment to democracy (Russia) are relatively far stronger. 

It isn't that I object to the democratic rhetoric of the JNC per se - it is just that somehow, opposition to capitalism always seems to be a more important value to them in practice, and empowering nations that are hostile to democracy always seems a price the JNC are willing (even keen) to pay in order to oppose US corporations. Of course the JNC are welcome to espouse any ideological position they wish - but the constant highlighting of democracy in JNC rhetoric is either naive or disingenuous when the only practical positions the JNC ever takes are to revert to forms of governance that give more influence to undemocratic states. 

Cheers

David

On 28 Oct 2014, at 11:36 pm, Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:

> I stopped reading once the straw man came out:
> "…decision making by self-selected elites, otherwise known by the name “multistakeholder governance”. Centrally, this position advocates an 'equal footing' multistakeholder model for global governance of the Internet, whereby global corporations are given the same level of power as governments in deciding public policy issues."
> 
> -- 
> 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 ::
> 
> On Oct 28, 2014, at 3:34 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> 
>> Dear all
>> 
>> The new JNC statement "Governing the global Internet – is the status
>> quo the only option?" is available at
>> 
>> http://justnetcoalition.org/sites/default/files/ITU_PP_2014_Stmt2.pdf
>> 
>> Greetings,
>> Norbert
>> co-convenor, Just Net Coalition
>> 
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