[governance] [bestbits] Remarks at UNESCO Closing Ceremony of "Connecting the Dots Conference"

Guru Guru at ITforChange.net
Thu Mar 5 10:02:02 EST 2015 

On Thursday 05 March 2015 04:33 PM, Shahzad Ahmad wrote:
>
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> ...and adding to what Anriette said below, we are shocked to see such 
> a response from veterans and leaders of CSOs on IG. This 
> unfortunately, completely negates the spirit of working together.
>

Thanks Shahzadbhai
I suppose you are referring here to Jeremy's blog? where he continues 
his rant against JNC with extraordinary mis-characterisations and mud 
slinging?  this was missing in Anriette's mail
warm regards,
Guru

> We have to continue to work together and strive for more building upon 
> and capitalizing on the small successes here an there.
the omission of 'democracy' is an extra ordinary loss, I am sure I need 
not tell you this.

>
> Thanks and best wishes
> Shahzad
>
>
>
> On 3/5/15 3:35 PM, Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
> > Dear all
> >
> > Just an explanation and some context.
> >
> > I was on the 'coordinating committee' of the event. Our role was to
> > review comments on the draft statement and support the chair and
> > secretariat in compiling drafts.
> >
> > The final UNESCO outcome document did include the vast majority of
> > text/proposals submitted by civil society beforehand and onsite.
> >
> > This includes text submitted by Richard Hill on behalf of JNC (Richard
> > made several editorial suggestions which improved the text) and text
> > from Anita Gurumurthy from IT for Change (which greatly improved
> > weakened language on gender in the pre-final draft).
> >
> > The text on 'social and economic rights' were not excluded for any
> > reason other than it came during the final session and the Secretariat
> > were trying to keep the document short and linked directly to the Study.
> > It was decided to elaborate on the links to broader rights, and to
> > UNESCO needing to work with other rights bodies, in the final study
> > report rather than in the outcome statement.
> >
> > Again, not ideal from my perspective, but that was the outcome of the
> > discussion.
> >
> > It is a pity that 'democratic' was not added, but it was never really an
> > option. I personally, and APC, support linking democratic to
> > multistakeholder and we were happy that this happened in the NETmundial
> > statement. And reading Norbert's text below (thanks for that Norbert) I
> > would like to find a way to make sure that the meaning of democratic
> > However, in the UN IG context there is a very particular angle to why
> > "democratic multistakeholder" is so contentious. In the Tunis Agenda the
> > word "democratic" is directly linked with the word "multilateral" -
> > every time it occurs. This means that people/governments who feel that
> > 'multilateral' can be used to diminish the recognition given to the
> > importance of multistakeholder participation, and take the debate back
> > intergovernmental oversight of IG, will not agree to having 'democratic'
> > in front of multistakeholder.
> >
> > In the context of these UN type negotiations it will be code for
> > reinserting multilateral (in the meaning of 'among governments') into
> > the text.
> >
> > At the NETmundial we had to fight for 'democratic multistakeholder', but
> > because it is a 'new' text we succeeded.
> >
> > The thing with documents that come out of the UN system is that they are
> > full of invisible 'hyperlinks' to previous documents and political
> > struggles that play themselves out in multiple spaces.
> >
> > I actually looked for a quote from the Tunis Agenda that we could insert
> > (at Richard's suggestion) to see if I could find a reference to
> > democratic that is not linked to 'multilateral' but I could not find
> > this quote, and I showed this to Richard and warned him that
> > unfortunately 'democratic' will most likely not be included.
> >
> > I can confirm that the editing group did consider this seriously, but
> > that the number of objections to this text were far greater than the
> > number of requests for putting it in.
> >
> > This is simply in the nature of consensus texts that are negotiated in
> > this way.
> >
> > There was also much stronger text on anonymity and encryption as
> > fundamental enablers of online privacy and freedom of expression in the
> > early draft. But it had to be toned down on the insistence of the
> > government of Brazil as the Brazilian constitution states that anonymity
> > is illegitimate.
> >
> > Civil society never succeeds in getting everything it wants in documents
> > we negotiate with governments. We have to evaluate the gains vs. the 
> losses.
> >
> > In my view the gains in this document outweighs the losses. Supporting
> > it means that we have  UN agency who has a presence in the global south
> > who will put issues that are important to us on its agenda, which will,
> > I hope, create the opportunity for more people from civil society,
> > particularly from developing countries, to learn, participate and
> > influence internet-related debates with policy-makers.
> >
> > Michael, as for your tone, and your allegations. I don't really know
> > what to say about them. They are false, they are destructive and they
> > demean not only the work of the civil society organisations or
> > individuals you name, but also the work - and what I believe to be the
> > values - of the Just Net Coalition.
> >
> > Anriette
> >
> >
> >
> > On 05/03/2015 11:46, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> >> On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 02:27:14 +0100
> >> Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Mar 4, 2015, at 7:54 PM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Perhaps we could have an explanation from Jeremy and others on the
> >>>> drafting committee as to when and how "democracy" and "social and
> >>>> economic rights' became unacceptable terms in a document meant to
> >>>> have global significance?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> With pleasure.  This is why:
> >>>
> >>> 
> http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/unesco-resists-jncs-attempt-to-turn-democracy-against-ordinary-internet-users
> >>
> >> I would like to hereby state clearly that what Jeremy claims is JNC's
> >> view of "democratic multi-stakeholderism" is not an actual position of
> >> JNC.
> >>
> >> For JNC, "democratic" simply means: democratic.
> >>
> >> We insist that just like governance at national levels must be
> >> democratic (which has been internationally accepted as a human right,
> >> even if there are countries where this is not currently implemented
> >> satisfactorily), any and all global governance must also be democratic.
> >>
> >> JNC's foundational document, the Delhi Declaration, states this as
> >> follows:
> >>
> >>    Globally, there is a severe democratic deficit with regard to
> >>    Internet governance. It is urgently required to establish
> >>    appropriate platforms and mechanisms for global governance of the
> >>    Internet that are democratic and participative.
> >>
> >> We are opposed to any kind of system in which multistakeholderism is
> >> implemented in a way that is not democratic.
> >>
> >> We are *not* opposed to participative mechanisms for global governance
> >> of the Internet. In fact we explicitly demand, in our foundational
> >> document, mechanisms for global governance of the Internet which are
> >> democratic *and* participative.
> >>
> >> This demand has nothing whatsoever to do with what Jeremy claims is our
> >> goal, which he describes as “limited type of government-led
> >> rulemaking”. That would clearly *not* be participative.
> >>
> >> We insist that Internet governance must be democratic *and*
> >> participative.
> >>
> >> Is that so hard to understand???
> >>
> >>
> >> The above-mentioned post of Jeremy also links, twice, to an earlier
> >> blog post of his, and he claims that he has there "revealed ... the
> >> agenda of the Just Net Coalition". That post happens to be quite 
> full of
> >> factually false assertions. I have now published my response (which had
> >> previously been communicated in a non-public manner) at
> >>
> >> http://justnetcoalition.org/reply-jeremy-malcolm
> >>
> >> Greetings,
> >> Norbert
> >> co-convenor, Just Net Coalition
> >> http://JustNetCoalition.org
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> - -- 
> Shahzad Ahmad
> Country Director, Bytes for All, Pakistan
> IM: shahzad at jit.si | Google Talk: bytesforall
> Twitter: @bytesforall | @sirkup
> Office Direct Landline: +92 51 8437981
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