[governance] [bestbits] Fw: [Igfregionals] Fw: [IGFmaglist] World Economic Forum - Davos 2018 "Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”

Sat Jan 20 06:26:04 EST 2018

Can the invitation letter be seen by others? It's possible for the
invitation to be just for Lynn (because she has adequate credentials to
deserve personal invitation), but she sees an opportunity in it to make
some presentations on behalf of IGF. That's what I suspect from the clause:

 "I/the IGF have been invited..."

That's IMO also why it looks like MAG was bypassed.

If the invitation is personal, Lynn has every right and all it takes to
attend the forum and do all the roles she had outlined, but any
ideas/opinions/arguments she will present and any incidents are strictly
hers. It doesn't (and can't) follow that because she's MAG chair she'll be
representing MAG or IGF. If the invitation letter is specifically to IGF
MAG Chair, then she's entltled to answer the invitation on that capacity,
after properly informing the constituency. She may or may not seek anyone's
inputs to what she'll say or do. However, an invitation letter to IGF
certainly requires a process of determining the person or delegation to
represent IGF in word and action.

I strongly think it's important for Lynn to explain her use of the forward
slash between "I" and "the IGF".  Is the invitation letter ambiguous (not
clear about who's invited)?

CPU

On Jan 20, 2018 4:14 AM, "parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

On Friday 19 January 2018 11:23 PM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:

On 19/1/18 5:11 am, parminder wrote:

I really did not know that IGF had its own agency to represent itself at
other forums. Whom does it really represent? Because when you represent,
you also speak for. For whom does the it speak, and on what basis? .. That
is a mission creep which has been done without consulting or even
declaring....

I actually agree with Parminder on this (yes, it does happen). Not that I
think that the IGF shouldn't be able to be represented in an official way
at other international institutions. On the contrary, I strongly believe
that it should be able to do so,

That might be one view, but it was not ever proposed nor agreed to by, lets
use the term, "IGF community". This is always the problem with so called or
claimed "open and flexible process", they get captured by whoever can
expend the most resources. Norms and structures then can accordingly work
to ensure fairness and equity, the values that should be central to
progressive civil society

.... parminder

and the fact that it hasn't been able to effectively deliver messages to
other institutions has been one of its chief failings. I also don't blame
Lynn St Amour for wanting to do this.

But this is not the way to do it! The liaison between IGF and WEF (and
IETF, ICANN, OECD, WTO...) should be formally institutionalised in some
way, so that there is accountability and legitimacy. It shouldn't just be
casually announced that "I/the IGF have been invited...", as if the
distinction is immaterial.

I do disagree in one minor respect with Parminder and that's that, in my
reading of what has happened, it's not that the MAG has engineered this,
but rather that it's been done in a way that deliberately bypassed the MAG,
because the MAG is so dysfunctional that it stands in the way of the
evolution of the IGF, in this and other respects, and Lynn knows this.

But that doesn't make it right. If anything, this means the MAG needs to be
overhauled, not that it needs to be minimized and bypassed. I support
Parminder's call for the CS members of the MAG to hold it accountable here
and to call for the institution of a proper, transparent and accountable
process for the appointment of formal institutional liaisons between the
IGF and other bodies.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundationhttps://eff.orgjmalcolm@eff.org

Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161

:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::

Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122

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