[governance] AW: From Confusion to Clarification

Sun Jan 25 07:15:02 EST 2015

Dear friends,

six weeks ago I made a proposal under the thread "From Confusion to Clarification" to produce a Civil Society Internet Governance Compendium or Handbook. What was the idea behind the proposal? 

Civil Society is a recognized and needed stakeholder in the global Internet Governance debate and a needed partner in the evolving multistakeholder approaches to manage Internet related public policy issues. 
2015 will see a number of Internet Governance events where the voice of civil society has to be raised: It starts with the ITU Council IG Working Group Meetings in February, continues with UNESCO conferences and meetings of the UNCSTD, the HRC, the forthcoming Cybersecurity Conference in The Hague, the IGF in Brazil, the WSIS 10+ conference in New York in December 2015 and others. 

Civil Society does not speak with one voice. It is characterized by a broad diversity. This is not a weakness, this is a strength. It reflects the reality. And it is not different from the diversity within other stakeholder groups. In the governmental stakeholder group you have a broad varierty of positions - from the US via EU, Brazil, Egypt and India to China. In the private sector stakeholder group there are different approaches among transnational corporations and small and medium enterprises from developed and developing countries. And even among the I* organizations there are differences, as we have seen recently in the positioning towards the NetMundial initiative. This pluralism and diversity reflects the reality of the Internet Governance ecosystem. If one want to achieve sustainable progress a rough consensus has to include the main arguments from the main groups of all stakeholders. To achieve concrete results openess and transparency with regard to the various positions is a key pre-condition to promote mutual understanding. 

Insofar it would be good if civil society Internet Governance groups or individuals could describe openly what they are standing for. To have on paper the various perspectives different civil society groups have if it comes to Internet policy related issues would be useful anbd could enhance civil society input into the forthcoming negotiations, in particular with regard to WSIS 10+.         

Since I did send this proposals to this list I got numerous comments and critical remarks. Some respondents supported the project and called it a good idea. Others argued that this is a bad, unrealistic and counterproductive idea. Many partners made concrete proposals how such a project could be further enhanced. Taking into account all the feed back I got since last month I would specify my proposal in the following way:

I. Ian Peter, in his capacity as acting chair of the CSCG, should function as the main editor. Each member of the CSCG should nominate a co-editor. The role of the editor and the co-editors would be technical. They should not intervene into the content of the individual contributions. The six co-editors of the six member groups of the CWSG should invite four contributors from their group, one for each chapter. It is up to the groups whether the individual author expresses his own individual position or represents the position of the whole group. Each contribution should be 4 - 8 pages. Each author would be free to cover either the whole subject or to select a special sub-item. 

II. The book should have four chapters:
1.	Human Rights and Internet(Access, Freedom of Expression, Privacy, Content, Culture etc.)
2.	Security in Cyberspace (Cyberwar, Cyberterrorism, Cybercrime, Surveillance, National Sovereignty etc.)
3.	Social, Economic and Cultural Development (Digital Divide, Market Domination, Competition, Infrastructure Development, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity etc.)
4.	Technical Coordination (Names, Numbers, Protocols, Accountability etc.)

III. Timetable
It would be good to have a first draft ready until early May (for the Meeting of the UNCSTD). The final e-Version of the whole book should be ready until early September for use by the WSIS 10+ negotiations groups. A formal presentation should be organized during the 10th IGF in Brazil. Efforts should be undertake to produce also a paper version for distribution at the 10th IGF in November 2014. 

Best regards

Wolfgang

PS: 
I have described the "Four Baskets" more in detail in my blog in CircleID 
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20150103_internet_governance_outlook_2015_2_processes_many_venues_4_baskets/

w

Hi everybody

After weeks of confusing conflicts let´s move towards clarifying collaboration. What we have seen in the recent (sometimes unfriendly) disputes is that there are many different  civil society activists with different civil society positions. This is confusing, both for newcomers who want to join civil society groups in Internet Governance discussions as well as for other stakeholders who want to collaborate with civil society. On the othher Hand: This is natural. The civil Society Stakeholder Groups has similar differences as the governmental stakeholder group if you compare the governmental positions of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, US, EU, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia etc.
This not the Problem. The probllem is that you have to know what the position. So it is about transparency and clarity. 

Here is a proposal how to move forward:  We have seen so many people writing long e-mails arguing for their position. Wouldn´t it be better if we use this energy to write more comprehensive and structured position or issue papers so that newbies or outsiders will better understand what the real points under discussions are in CS circles? We have seen rather different arguments around the same issue from JNC to APC and NCUC folks.       

I propose that we start to work on what I call a Civil Society Internet Governance Handbook.  This handbook would allow all CS groups within the CSCG to present their own individual points of views so that everybody knows what the positions are. The book could be structured into four main chapters:

1.	Human Rights (Access, Freedom of Expression, Privacy etc.)
2.	Security (Cyberwar, Cyberterrorism, Cybercrime etc.)
3.	Economic Development (Market domination, competition, infrastructure development etc.)
4.	Technical Coordination (Names, Numbers, Protocols etc.)

Each of the six groups under the CSCG (IGC, BB, JNC, NCSG, Diplo, APC) could nominate four authors (one for each chapter). Each author would be free to argue for her/his position (five to maximum teen pages). There is no need for consensus. Every author would be free to present her/his radical, moderate, liberal and whatsoever position on one of the four main issues. 

Such a compendium would help to bring more transparency into the process and would enable a more fact based discussion in the IG events ahead of us.

We could deliver this as an e-book (probably with an Annex with main official texts as Tunis Agenda, Sao Paulo Principles, UN Resolutions etc.) until the May 2015 Sessions in Geneva. In total this book would be around 250 pages. If we find a sponsor we could publish this for the New York event in December 2015. Such a book would seen by the rest of the IG Community as a helpful contribution, it would strengthen the role of CS in the emerging IG multistakeholder mechanisms and would be also an input into the WSIS 10+ process. 

The chair of the CSCG (together with the co-chairs from the six groups) would be the editor.  

Any comment?

Wolfgang

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