[Governance] NOTICE: CSCG nomination process for IGF Leadership Panel

[parminder]

Dear All,

the forming of this Leadership Panel is neither in accordance with the
mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society, not is it as
per the wishes of what has been called as the ' IGF community'. Almost
all civil society and even ISOC (and thus the technical community) was
opposed to such a structure as has been formed. The letter linked in
below email from Sheetal also makes it clear, which is signed by APC,
ISOC, Access, Global digital Partners, and others
<https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/open-letter-interpretation-paragraph-93a-un-secretary-generals-roadmap-digital-cooperation>.
Just Net Coalition has already made its position on the whole process
clear <https://justnetcoalition.org/big-tech-governing-big-tech.pdf>,
and stand full against the formation of this Leadership Panel. It has no
logic, and place in the Internet Governance ecosystem, and is completely
an imposition from the Secretary General's office, which has of recent
been busy forming new governance bodies with considerable dominance of
corporations in many sectors.  This has been opposed by much of global
civil society, also in an inter-sectoral manner.

Just Net Coalition therefore refuses to participate in the process of
any kind of civil society nomination process for this Panel, much less
give any nomination of its own for it.

We also appeal to all civil society groups, and ISOC and the technical
community boycott the nomination process as an expression of their
opposition to the formation of the Leadership Panel. There is no point
in opposing any such structure, and moment such a structure is made
despite civil society and technical community's opposition, immediately
line up to make nominations for it.

Our Coalition also understands the need for engaging sometimes even with
imperfect governance systems, but in this case at least we can boycott
the first cycle of nominations to make our point. Else our opposition to
be will ne meaningless, and civil society loses its bite entirely. This
indeed has happened already in the Internet Governance space, in the
name of 'engagement'. 

Indeed, I call upon all the involved groups, and the CSCG group as well,
to get together to write a letter to UN SG opposing the formation of the
Leadership Panel, and laying out our problems with it. If we do no such
thing, our opposition and views in the future can hardly be expected to
be taken seriously.

Look forward to comments from other groups/ all.

parminder

On 15/11/21 3:21 pm, Sheetal Kumar via Governance wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> As you may have seen, the IGF Secretariat has launched the nomination
> process at the request of the Executive Office of the United Nations
> Secretary-General for the *inaugural Leadership Panel of the 2022 and
> 2023 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) cycles*
> <https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/internet-governance-forum-leadership-panel-call-for-nominations>.
>
>
>  
>
> Following several rounds of open consultations, the Leadership Panel
> is a response to the Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital
> Cooperation <https://undocs.org/A/74/821>, which calls for
> strengthening of the IGF through, among other aspects, /’’creating a
> strategic and empowered multi-stakeholder high-level body, building on
> the experience of the existing multi-stakeholder advisory group, which
> would address urgent issues, coordinate follow-up action on Forum
> discussions and relay proposed policy approaches and recommendations
> from the Forum to the appropriate normative and decision-making
> forums/.’’
>
>
> CSCG, and for this process, this includes APC and IGC, will run a
> nomination process to identify nominees for the two categories:
>
>   * Two [2] at-large members (distinguished or prominent persons who
>     do not fall under above stakeholder groups) and
>   * Two [2] CEO-level (or deputy-level) representatives from each of
>     the other three stakeholder groups (civil society)
>
> Please note, this does not mean we endorse the process or the
> mechanism itself. We will send a letter with the nominations that
> clearly reiterates our previous publicly stated positions (such as
> this Open letter on the interpretation of paragraph 93(a) of the
> UNSG's Roadmap on Digital Cooperation
> <https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/open-letter-interpretation-paragraph-93a-un-secretary-generals-roadmap-digital-cooperation>
> and this on the future of the IGF
> <https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/why-inclusive-transparent-and-accessible-global-digital-governance-more-crucial-ever>on
> the Leadership Panel/Higher-level MAG
> <https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/why-inclusive-transparent-and-accessible-global-digital-governance-more-crucial-ever>),
> including the importance of maintaining the MAG's current role and not
> supplanting it, the importance of diversity and inclusion,
> transparency etc and make clear that our submission of nominees should
> not be read as endorsement.
>
>
> We intend that our nominations reflect the above criteria. Please note
> that to receive a CSCG nomination for the IGF leadership panel you'll
> need to send us (me and Valeria and Bruna cc'd) the information
> required on the online form
> <https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/leadership-panel-nomination-2022>.
> We request this is done by _*COB November 22 *_so that we are able to
> submit by the deadline of _*November 29.
> *_
>
> _*
> *_
>
> We look forward to receiving your nomination/s._*
> *_
>
> Best
> Sheetal
>
>
> -- 
> *
> *
> *Sheetal Kumar*
> Head of Global Engagement and Advocacy | GLOBAL PARTNERS DIGITAL
> T: +44 (0)20 3 818 3258| Time zone: GMT | M: +44 (0)7739569514  |
> PGP ID: E592EFBBEAB1CF31  | PGP Fingerprint: F5D5 114D 173B E9E2 0603
> DD7F E592 EFBB EAB1 CF31|
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20211120/240cbde0/attachment.htm>