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

[Anriette Esterhuysen]

Dear Parminder

Did JNC include economic and social rights in the submission you made to
the UNESCO study? I mean beforehand.

All I can say is that the addition of economic and social rights was
made the afternoon when the statement was being finalised. I argued that
it should be included but it was not. If there was more time I think
that it would have been easy to include the reference to the ESCR treaty
in the preamble, and in the text. But translators were demanding the
text and time was up.

There were other things too that were argued which took time. The people
who submitted content will know what made it and what did not.

Whether civil society organisations accept the statement is up to them.

I did not claim to represent civil society in this process.  I was also
not the only civil society person on the committee. I truly did my best
to try and make sure the text accommodated strong concerns and spoke
with individuals from several governments and civil society
organisations - including JNC - in an effort to do so.

APC has always emphasised economic, social and cultural rights in
relation to the internet and will continue to do so.

The reason I said that adding 'democratic' was not an option was that on
the first day during the open discussion of the text Richard proposed
the text and several governments submitted comments to say that it is
non-negotiable for them and that if it was added they would dissociate
themselves with the document.

I shared this with Richard so that he had advance warning. The only way
of changing that would probably have been to work with government
delegations and convince them to argue for it.

I don't want to get into a long battle of words beyond this. Of course
there are political issues at play that we need to be aware of and
address. It is your view that JNC are the only people who are doing so.

I know that others, including APC, are also addressing these issues, in
multiple forums and in multiple ways.

Anriette


On 05/03/2015 14:41, parminder wrote:
> Dear Anriette
> 
> Respectfully, there sure can be justifications and justifications, but
> there are also some solid facts that we must contend with.
> 
> The first fact here is about 'social, economic and cultural rights':
> 
> First about its cardinal importance - I cant see the 'access' pillar of
> UNESCO's interest in IG without a social, economic and cultural rights
> framing, it becomes something very different without that framing, which
> btw is what both telcos and MNCs like facebook and google want. So,
> there is nothing innocent about it. There is a big global political
> struggle about what 'access' means in normative terms. (Even telcos
> cited the 'access' issue in their opposition to net neutrality!) In
> fact, I see even privacy framed in soc and eco rights framing becuase of
> the key economic value of data today, and certainly ethics. I can keep
> writing on this subject, but I am sure you understand. You might
> remember that the framing of communication rights basically arose from
> this issue - that negative rights do not suffice to enable people's
> communicative power and equity, we need positive rights as well. Whereby
> communications rights were framed as against just an exclusive accent on
> freedom of expression. And of course UNESCO was at the centre of those
> political struggles. Everyone knows that the US has always been solidly
> against the eco/soc/cultural rights side of communicative systems, and
> in Paris they (again) won, with implicit or explicit support of civil
> society groups among others. This is a fact, and we must face it.
> 
> We just need to contend with the fact that eco, soc and cultural rights
> are not mentioned in the document, even when civil and political rights
> are mentioned, as well as the corresponding covenant. As you say
> elsewhere in your email,  UN documents indeed have continuities of text,
> earlier political struggles and so on. And so, the mistakes and loses of
> this document will be taken forward. After WSIS, if was the first key IG
> doc made in a UN body, and so the losses are huge.
> 
> In the circumstances, it is not just a matter of everyone being good and
> nice to everyone one else here, there is a political struggle and in my
> view a great political loss here. We need to know who always so well
> remembers to put FoE and civil/ political rights and who forgets to put
> economic and social rights, in framing communication/ information
> issues. Who forgot in this particular case, and who ignored. You say,
> the proposal to put eco and soc rights came in too late. We, as in JNC,
> proposed when we saw the draft. We sure cannot propose earlier. But what
> were the drafters doing - well perhaps they need to take more people who
> are likely to remember this set of rights! These are real issues. These
> cannot just be swept under the carpet because all of us should be nice
> to all others of us. We need to know. And we need to be able to tell our
> constituencies outside, to whom we are primarily responsible.
> 
> Also about the proposal to put this part coming in late, and drafters
> wanting a short document,  tell me how much time and space it takes to
> put a comma at the end of preambular para beginning with "Further
> recalled.....  " and adding after ...Covenant on Civil and Political
> rights just this - "....and the International Covenant on Social,
> Economic and Cultural Rights". Especially when whole new points and
> sentences have been added to the draft between the last plenary and the
> final document! Did those present there as civil society even at that
> stage when they discovered that soc and eco rights were missing really
> take this issue up with full might? Did anyone there solidly back the
> demand. I very much doubt - bec the proof is out there. Why did we not
> fully put our foot down. After all we would only be asking what exists
> in most UN doc on similar issues, and which was there prominently in the
> WSIS documents.
> 
> I dont think we should put up excuses that the demand for putting in soc
> and eco rights came in late, and UNESCO wanted a short doc, and so on.
> This excuse is untenable, in a provable way as I show above. Other long
> text were included, and much later.. If it is wrong, and an enormous
> political loss, it is so, clearly and bluntly! We must accept it.
> 
> The second fact we must contend with is that some civil society people
> there joined US and its allies to say 'democratic' has baggage, and all
> possible references to 'democracy' were refused. And what I really find
> somewhat shocking is that you are sympathetically explaining that view,
> although in a most unconvincing manner. Dont you think multistakeholder
> has baggage! Why did you not remove that term on the same logic. Do you
> not know that there are parties that think even 'human rights' have
> baggage. Would you accept such a logic?  Who decides what has baggage?
> Does this also bespeaks a certain composition of civil society that was
> more actively present and involved there. So,  should we now start
> considering 'democratic' as a likely problematic term. Great progress we
> are making! First one needed to fight to get democratic into the
> NetMundial document in just one place when multistakeholder is there in
> about 30 places. And then comes the meeting at UNESCO  - an hallowed UN
> body - and here we are told that well in fact 'democratic' is
> problematic and has baggage and so let it be completely out.
> 
> I dont understand you logic that in Tunis Agenda democratic is always
> mentioned with multilateral and therefore is means multilateral . I
> thought if a word is mentioned along with another one, it can be taken
> that it means something different. At places, all three democratic,
> multilateral and multistakeholder are mentioned together in TA. Does
> that mean that each of these then is a code word for the other. This is
> a very weak and unsustainable logic.
> 
> Meanwhile, you know that it is not as you say 'the editing group did
> consider it seriously'. When Anita proposed putting 'democratic
> dialogue' in a different place, in 5.1, such apparently was the depth of
> antipathy to the term 'democratic' that the group quietly included
> 'public dialogue' not touching the word 'democratic' even here, in a
> largely 'innocent' usage. (This in fact was a good opportunity to
> assuage those who were demanding the inclusion of the 'democratic term -
> a democratic dialogue certainly cannot mean multilateral, or does it ?
> But the fact that even this opportunity was not taken shows how solidly
> the forces against democracy were entrenched. I simply do not know what
> civil society persons on the inside were doing.) This really makes one
> extremely alarmed, to see such studious exclusion of the word
> 'democratic'. It is from this alarm that our extreme concern at what
> happened in Paris is pouring out. And you want us to simply accept it as
> if nothing happened and move on.
> 
> BTW, when you say,"It is a pity that 'democratic was not added, but it
> was never really an option' , I do not fully understand. Why you say 'it
> was never really an option'. That itself is alarming. Have we reached
> such a stage that use of the term 'democratic' is no longer really an
> option for global normative texts of IG'.  JNC has an analysis of what
> is happening here, and we have held it for a long time, with pretty
> accurate predictive value, as we see things unfolding like what happened
> in Paris. We are not ready to be happy to move on. We intend to dig in
> and fight. Social, economic and cultural rights must be restored as key
> normative values for the communicative sphere of which the Internet is
> today a central element. And governance in all areas, including the
> Internet, will be democratic - that must be made clear. We will decry
> any effort or move which goes against these, and if needed the actors
> responsible. This is a political struggle, not a cocktail party.
> 
> There is more, but later.
> 
> And I do thank you for your report below.
> 
> parminder
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday 05 March 2015 04:05 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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>>
>>
>>
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> 
> 

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