[governance] Good examples of muiltistakeholder policy development at a national level?

Izumi AIZU iza at anr.org
Sat Nov 2 10:01:15 EDT 2019


Well said, Peng Hwa, citing Lyndall from SA government who chaired PrepCom
2 of UN WSIS that led WGIG which proposed IGF, at a night when South
 Africa won Rugby World Cup against all ids here in Japan.

IMHO, if IGF wants to remain relevant, there should be a bold reform, say
making from scratch. But I doubt most of ‘stake’ holders there don’t want
to do that, exactly because they don’t want to lose the very stake they
got? Be it business, government, tech community or civil society. It’s been
so long since 2003 for WSIS or ICANN since around 1997/8.  Aging problem
indeed.

Izumi


2019年11月2日(土) 14:23 Ang Peng Hwa (Prof) <TPHANG at ntu.edu.sg>:

> Hi all.
>
> Chipping in….
>
> “in their respective roles”
>
> It’s a bit of glass half-empty or half-full perspective. Inserting “in
> their respective roles” suggests that civil society has a role. From one
> perspective therefore, moving from non-recognition to being recognised as
> having a role was a major deal. Hence the phrase was accepted.
>
> > And the IGF was created as a forum in which all stakeholders could
> discuss – but _*not*_ decide – issues
>
> The problem with the IGF is not the decision, which yes, any attempt to
> arrive at that will be challenging to say the least. The IGF mandate
> includes the power to recommend. But many business stakeholders in
> particular did not want even that. Yes, there are best practice fora but
> for many government types, this is (note present tense, from past
> imperfect) not enough for their bosses.
>
> > I am interested to know of examples of nation states that might have
> reasonable to good practices for involving civil society and the private
> sector in internet related policy development,
>
> I suspect that it will be difficult if not impossible to locate
> “reasonable to good practices”. I am reminded of a remark by Lyndall
> Shope-Mafole <https://www.wgig.org/docs/Bio-Mafole.html>, then
> Chairperson, Presidential National Commission on Information Society and
> Development of South Africa, Pretoria, at a WGIG meeting in which someone
> said that it was difficult for civil society to effect policy. She said
> that when you push, you must expect pushback but then you must keep
> pushing. And if you cannot do that, you will not effect policy.
>
>
>
> I have one example from Singapore. (Just one. The Singapore Government
> does so much of the policy work that once when I told the passenger sitting
> next to me on a flight that I did policy work, his response was: you work
> for the government?)
>
>
>
> This was the case of the movie Dallas Buyers Club. Its business model
> apparently includes sending illegal downloaders lawyer’s letters demanding
> S$5,000 (US$3,500) for the download. The ex-co of the Singapore Chapter of
> the Internet Society, many of whom are lawyers, wrote an op-ed
> https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/dallas-buyers-club-case-threatening-subscribers-wont-stop-piracy calling
> for some safeguards against the practice. When the next cases,  Queen of
> the Desert (Nicole Kidman) and Fathers & Daughters (Russell Crowe), did the
> same thing, the Attorney-General and the IP Office stepped in *https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ipos-agc-seek-intervene-court-proceedings-alleged-illegal-movie-downloading-case
> <https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ipos-agc-seek-intervene-court-proceedings-alleged-illegal-movie-downloading-case>*.
> The court threw out the two cases
> https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/high-court-throws-out-hollywood-movie-piracy-case
> .
>
> There was another happy ending: the paper gave us $300 for the op-ed and
> as just about the entire committee had contributed to the op-ed, we had a
> satisfying lunch meeting.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Ang Peng Hwa
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *<governance-request at lists.riseup.net> on behalf of "Mueller,
> Milton L" <milton at gatech.edu>
> *Reply-To: *"Mueller, Milton L" <milton at gatech.edu>
> *Date: *Saturday, 2 November 2019 at 10:57 AM
> *To: *governance <governance at lists.riseup.net>
> *Subject: *RE: [governance] Good examples of muiltistakeholder policy
> development at a national level?
>
>
>
> Ian, David, Tamir:
>
> Sorry for my late entry into this discussion.
>
>
>
> We need to understand the historical context in which concepts such as “in
> their respective roles” and “equal footing” arose.
>
>
>
> In the first phase of WSIS, governments insisted that global internet
> policy could only be made by them. That was their right exclusively, they
> believed, based on classic, 19th century concepts of territorial
> sovereignty. If you read the WSIS Declaration you see the roles for
> governments, civil society and the private sector spelled out. Private
> sector was supposed to be confined to operational matters, and the role of
> civil society is so vague as to be almost laughable, but it had something
> to do with local communities.
>
>
>
> The civil society and private sector actors, on the other hand, wanted
> equal status in global internet governance. This was particularly true of
> those involved in ICANN, which was a non-governmental governance
> institution, in which governments not only did not have the final say in
> making policy, but actually were confined to an advisory capacity.
>
>
>
> WSIS was a (not very coherent) compromise in which multistakeholder
> governance was formally recognized and accepted, but (as a document written
> entirely by governments) said that the different stakeholders had different
> “roles.” And the IGF was created as a forum in which all stakeholders could
> discuss – but _*not*_ decide – issues on an “equal footing.”
>
>
>
> The division of labor called for by “in their respective roles” never
> really worked. ICANN went on about its business, strengthening the role of
> governments but never elevating them to the special status that the WSIS
> resolutions wanted. GAC is still advisory, and outside of ICANN, in things
> like the issue of cyber norms, we see civil society and the private sector
> as influential as governments.
>
>
>
> Internet governance is transnational and the “public” it governs is
> transnational, yet governments are territorial. Internet governance does
> not work by means of formal treaties negotiated among territorial
> sovereigns, for two reasons: 1) because the governments cannot agree on any
> rules, and 2) in IG, operational and technical matters are fully integrated
> with policy decisions so that private sector really has a lot of the de
> facto decision making power. Any attempt to govern a globalized system such
> as the DNS based on territorial sovereignty, for example, would threaten
> the global compatibility of the internet.
>
>
>
> The thing to understand here is that multistakeholder governance, in which
> national governments do NOT hold the final say, is necessary for cyberspace
> because cyberspace is global, transnational. Multistakeholder gov fills the
> gaps left by the shortcomings of territorial governance.
>
>
>
> Now, for you to ask, Ian, whether “multistakeholder governance” or “equal
> footing” is needed or works at the _*national*_ level kind of misses the
> point of the whole debate over MS that took place (and is still taking
> place) around _*global*_ internet governance. Of course at the national
> level, you have a single sovereign government and it is much less
> problematic for national decisions to be made under the framework of
> traditional national governance.  And in democratic societies, there are
> all kinds of consultations, public-private partnerships, and power sharing
> arrangements but in the final analysis the state is the decider at the
> national level. The reason we’ve moved away from that for global IG is
> because there is no global sovereign.
>
>
>
> These issues are very close to the theme of an IGF workshop I organized
> along with Bill Drake. You can check out the speakers and themes here:
>
>
>
> https://igf2019.sched.com/event/8255ed1c308e604776fbb689d39138dd
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* governance-request at lists.riseup.net <
> governance-request at lists.riseup.net> *On Behalf Of *
> david_allen_ab63 at post.harvard.edu
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 29, 2019 8:36 PM
> *To:* governance <governance at lists.riseup.net>
> *Subject:* Re: [governance] Good examples of muiltistakeholder policy
> development at a national level?
>
>
>
> How about "in their respective roles"?
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 29, 2019, at 4:42 PM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> I am interested to know of examples of nation states that might have
> reasonable to good practices for involving civil society and the private
> sector in internet related policy development, along the lines perhaps of
> the ancient WSIS definition of "on an equal footing".
>
>
>
> Is anyone doing this this other than in a token fashion? A few years ago
> we had a good example with Brazil, but a change of government changed that.
> What are our good examples now, or don't they exist?
>
>
>
> Ian
>
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-- 
                     >> Izumi Aizu <<
Institute for InfoSocionomics, Tama University, Tokyo
Institute for HyperNetwork Society, Oita,
Japan
www.anr.org
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