[governance] JNC position on article 35 of the Tunis Agenda (was Re: Towards an Internet Social Forum)
Norbert Bollow
nb at bollow.ch
Fri Feb 6 14:09:34 EST 2015
Dear all
Just a quick clarification, as I currently lack the time that would be
required to enter this debate substantively:
There has not been any "JNC position at WGEC", as JNC has not been a
WGEC participant. In fact when WGEC was constituted, JNC hadn't even
been formed yet. However, to my best knowledge, what Parminder (who
participated in WGEC, although not as a representative of JNC) actually
said at WGEC is nevertheless fully consistent with JNC's positions.
This cannot be said in regard to how several others have been
characterizing JNC's (and also Parminder's) positions: There have been
several public mis-characterizations that are full of assertions of
strawman positions which are very easy to disagree with.
The actual position which JNC has adopted and published in regard to
this matter is the following:
"Just Net Coalition agrees with the spirit of paragraph 35 of the Tunis
Agenda in that that governments have specific public policy roles and
responsibilities, and other stakeholders cannot claim a similar
position as governments in this regard. However, we consider that the
description of the role given to civil society in this section is
inadequate. While the text does speak of an important role that civil
society should continue to play, this is inadequate because the
exclusive mention of 'community level' and not 'policy level' gives an
unbalanced view of civil society's role. While community level work and
linkages constitute the key legitimising factors of civil society,
civil society also has a strong role to play at the policy level in
terms of 'deepening democracy' whereby it brings to the policy table
representation of otherwise under-represented voices."
(This is the content of note 5 in JNC's October 14, 2014 Statement to
the 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference of the International
Telecommunication Union.)
I'm always interested in reading responses that agree or disagree with
JNC's positions, or otherwise discuss them in an insightful manner.
Postings that express disagreement with strawman positions which
neither JNC nor anyone else has adopted are much less interesting.
Greetings,
Norbert
co-convenor, Just Net Coalition
JustNetCoalition.org
On Thu, 5 Feb 2015 23:11:33 +0800
David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:
>
> On 5 Feb 2015, at 1:54 pm, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Ahh David, I think you have got it wrong certainly for me and I
> > would guess for the JNC.
> > I, at least, believe in the “sovereign right” of the people not of
> > “nations” (or governments or states…
>
> The JNC position at WGEC was to retain article 35 of the
> Tunis Agenda, which states • Policy authority for Internet-related
> public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have
> rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public
> policy issues And as far as I am aware nothing has changed.
>
> Now, Michael, I have absolutely no issue with you dissenting
> from the JNC position, but the JNC position certainly appears to be
> that they support the sovereign right of states over internet policy.
>
>
> > In some instances this “sovereign right” is able to be exercised
> > through the democratic processes governing the actions of “nations”
> > in other instances (dictatorships, autocracies, oligarchies, etc.)
> > this is not possible. This latter case doesn’t remove the
> > sovereign right of the people nor is it transferred in these
> > instances to the “nation”, rather these sovereign rights await
> > appropriate means/modalities for a democratic execution.
>
> Which is a reasonable position (though I feel it translates
> very poorly to any sort of intergovernmental process), it just does
> not appear to be the JNC position. The JNC position as of WGEC was to
> support the sovereign right of states regardless of their democratic
> status. And JNC explicitly took this position without support from
> other civil society participants, but with the support of Saudi
> Arabia and Iran.
>
> > And, now that I think about it, with the formation of the NMI one
> > can start talking simply about “elites” as the governing structures
> > of these multi-stakeholder processes …
>
> Do you think the civil society representatives on NMI are
> elites? In what sense?
>
> > Of course, these folks are “self-selected” in their governance role
> > while their being “elites” derives from their position of power in
> > various economic, political and social structures or as courtiers
> > to those who do.
>
> It is odd indeed how much JNC representatives accuse everyone
> else of being ‘self-selected’ as a criticism. JNC seems to have their
> share of members who represent organisations with a very small
> membership that exist for no purpose other than to be vehicles for
> Internet governance participation.
>
> Regards
>
> Davids
>
> > M
> >
> > From: David Cake [mailto:dave at difference.com.au]
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 5:50 PM
> > To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
> > Cc: Avri Doria
> > Subject: Re: [governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum
> >
> >
> > On 2 Feb 2015, at 9:07 pm, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Errr… yes, there is a fundamental difference between those who
> > believe in and the democratic governance of the Internet and those
> > who believe in the governance of the Internet by a self-appointed
> > (multistakeholder) elite. JNC supports the sovereign special rights
> > of undemocratic nations too, as you are well aware Michael. Until
> > JNC addresses that, all this talk of democracy raises more
> > questions than it answers. And of course, we now understand ‘self
> > appointed elite’ to be JNC speak for ‘those who choose to show up
> > to open fora’. The JNC attitude, given the number of decisions it
> > makes without even consulting with civil society colleagues, would
> > seem to be that they should do the appointing. I make no apology
> > for not being very keen on that. David
> >
> >
> > M
> >
> > From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
> > [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Avri
> > Doria Sent: Monday, February 02, 2015 1:50 AM To:
> > governance at lists.igcaucus.org Subject: Re: [governance] Towards an
> > Internet Social Forum
> > Hi,
> >
> > While i think it would be lovely if Civil society could speak with
> > one voice, given the fundamental differences between those who
> > support multistakeholder distributed mechanisms on Internet policy
> > issues and those who support sovereign special rights on
> > international Internet public policy issues, it seems highly
> > unlikely.
> >
> > On some ancillary issues we may reach a consensus, but on the most
> > fundamental, that is unlikely. I think IGC should focus on those
> > other issues, such as modality for open participation etc where we
> > made indeed be able to speak in a common voice and perhaps able to
> > influence things in a direction the various camps can all accept.
> > While I accept using the IGC as a discussion place for the larger
> > issues, I do not think we should expect to reach consensus on these
> > issues.
> >
> > avri
> >
> >
> >
> > On 01-Feb-15 13:01, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > thx. for the discussion.
> >
> > The "speak with one voice" question can be easily answered: It is
> > the outcome of a process where different CS groups participate in a
> > bottom up open, transparent and inclusive drafting process and
> > agree on common languge around a number of issues. This has been
> > possible in the past from the CS WSIS 2003 declaration via numerous
> > statements in CSTD, IGF, UNESCO, ITU/WTPF and others. This was
> > workable on the basis of a principle which was inspired by Jon
> > Postels RFC 793."Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in
> > what you accept". If the various CS Groups return to RFC 793, there
> > is a good chance to reach rough consensus among the various groups
> > so that we can speak seriously with "one" voice in the WSIS 10+
> > process, knowing that this "one voice" is based on a broad variety
> > of different nuances but is united around basic values as human
> > rights, equality , justice, access, knowledge, brdiging the digital
> > divide etc. .. Wolfgang -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von:
> > governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org im Auftrag von Mawaki Chango
> > Gesendet: So 01.02.2015 10:24 An: Internet Governance; Norbert
> > Bollow Betreff: Re: [governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum
> > On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 7:34 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>
> > wrote: ... WK is calling for civil society to "speak with one
> > voice". So I find it natural to ask how it would be determined what
> > this "one voice" says concretely!
> >
> >
> > I find this question one of the most critical questions we are
> > faced with. It pertains to the same problem and observation that
> > previously led me to state that IGC does not have just ONE voice.
> > Interesting enough, you (Norbert) replied the following which I
> > don't disagree with but just wasn't the issue implied by my
> > statement.
> > On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:48 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>
> > wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:03:20 +0000
> > Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > In other words, IGC which is also a CSCG member is certainly not one
> > voice.
> >
> > In fact, despite all its shortcomings (which include the fact that
> > what the Charter says about enforcing the posting rules is not being
> > done, and may in fact be impossible to do) IGC. i.e. this list,
> > right now is still the best place to go to when desiring a broad
> > discussion inclusive of the whole variety of civil society
> > viewpoints.
> >
> > So the question is How and When can IGC have a unique/common/united
> > voice (you choose your preferred adjective)?
> > Part of it is the representation-accountability dimension which
> > seems to be what you're concerned with here (and yes, while
> > mentioning the non-enforcement of posting rules in passing.) But
> > the other big part is this: What will it take for members to accept
> > that their views, no matter how strong they feel about them, may
> > not carry the day (and they certainly cannot always
> > do)
> > and still allow the group to make a decision while keeping peace
> > and trust among us? This applies to all sides of our worldview
> > spectrum.
> > In my opinion, this question cluster is the million dollars knot
> > for IGC to untie (solve) in order to be functional again.
> >
> > Mawaki
> >
> >
> > In particular, some kind of credible plan would be needed to prevent
> > such a determination from being made on behalf of civil society as a
> > whole in a way that in reality might be significantly less inclusive
> > than it would claim to be.
> >
> > Greetings,
> > Norbert
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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