Re: [Governance] Update text on governance fore civil society document

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Hi all,

[please don't put my private address in copy, I'm on this list for 
quite a long time now !]

Le vendredi, 18 juil 2003, à 19:27 Europe/Paris, Adam Peake a écrit :

> We have been asked to update the text in the Civil Society Priorities 
> Document document on "Global Governance".  It's been controversial, 
> and clearly no consensus on it.

That's the least we can say... For the information of those who weren't 
in Paris, not only the CS document has been distributed there without 
the last sentence that I've proposed and that was added in the second 
draft - a decision that was not the result of any CS meeting in Paris 
-, but also the oral statements made in the government plenary on 
behalf of the governance caucus were based on the very first text 
proposed by Wolfgang, which, to my knowledge, was not either the result 
of a consensus on the list.

Let's forget as for now about these methods and practices which seem 
inherited from ICANN process itself, and let's try to really find a 
consensus on this issue, since the CS priority document has to be 
updated after this Paris meeting.

1/ The first issue to decide upon is the limits of the field addressed 
by this caucus.
First of all, the name of the caucus is "Internet governance". Internet 
doesn't mean ICTs, and a fortiori it doesn't mean information as a 
whole.
While I share Bill Drake's concern of broadening the governance issue, 
it is clear that this caucus only speaks about ICANN (and not even the 
Internet as a whole). It is also clear that very few people on this 
list can seriously claim their competence when broader governance 
issues than ICANN stuff are to be discussed.
==> This caucus should recognize that it should only deal with IP names 
and numbers management. I hope Bill, Sean and others will understand 
that this is certainly the less harmful proposal, specially considering 
the exchanges on this list till now.
Broader governance issues may be considered either throughout the whole 
CS document or they may be the subject of a new caucus to be created: 
after all, it was the first objective of this caucus to consider global 
information governance (including media governance). Unfortunately, 
current caucus membership is leading to ICANN discussion only.

2/ Supporting the so-called "multistakeholder partnership" is not a 
postulate of this caucus. It's only the position of some people and 
groups, which is not shared by other people and groups, among them 
members of this caucus as well as among all the civil society 
organizations involved in the WSIS process.
Therefore, this call for a "multistakeholder partnership" shouldn't be 
present in the documents and statements of this caucus without a 
serious discussion on this issue.
As we agreed in plenary in Paris (when discussing Bertrand de la 
Chapelle statement), the consensus is reached on demanding "the full 
participation of civil society organizations", and not a 
"multistakeholder partnership".

3/ Completely denying the role of governements is not either a 
postulate of this caucus, specially when authoritative arguments are 
used, sometimes close to a updated version of the "Goodwin point":-). 
It is, however, the point expressed by the industry, e.g. in Paris in 
the CCBI statements (CCBI is the coalition made by the industry to 
speak with a single voice during WSIS, it includes, among others, the 
ICC, the GBDe, etc.). Here, we are in a civil society caucus, we are 
supposed to express a vision of the public interest, not our private 
interests.

In this context, I hardly see how we can simply go back to the text 
Wolfgang submitted and was included in the first draft, even if a 
reference to human rights is included, making it wishy-washy by at the 
same time keeping the remaining of this draft as it was.
The main problems with Wolfgang draft is that:
1/ It takes as granted a consensus on a multistakeholder partnership, 
and for decision-making bodies, not only discussion groups
2/ It calls for "Global Information Governance", including ALL kinds of 
public policies, even non ICT-specific policies and legislation
Not to mention the earlier comments I made on this text when the first 
draft of the CS document has been sent to us.

Finally, promoting the statu quo regarding the specific issue of ICANN 
and IP name and numbers management is clearly not a consensus on this 
list. And with due respect and friendship to Veni, I cannot imagine 
that things will change with ICANN simply because he has been appointed 
as director:-).

ICANN needs to be endangered to expect any change from it. This danger 
can only come from the basic principles of democracy : (1) separation 
of powers between different entities and (2) limitation of the field of 
action of each entity. The same applies to ITU, and to any organization.
The only conclusion that can be derived, and that may lead to a 
consensus, is that : (1) in application of the first principle, neither 
ICANN only, nor ITU (or any other agency/organization) only should keep 
the management of the whole IP name and number space in its hands and 
(2) that the role of the entities managing names and numbers should be 
strictly limited, and specially not be broadened to whole policy making.

This needs re-examination of the current situation, with all the 
proposals on the table. During this re-examination, which will last 
long, civil society organizations are likely to be able to raise their 
voices.
This is the reason why a call for an international conference on this 
issue (of course sponsored by WSIS between Geneva and Tunis, to answer 
Wolfgang question. Who doubts WSIS would be more than happy to sponsor 
that ?), with the full participation of the civil society - and all 
governements at the same level, not only the worst ones, is a 
reasonable proposal.


--
Meryem Marzouki - http://www.iris.sgdg.org
IRIS - Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire
294 rue de Charenton - 75012 Paris
Tel/Fax. +33(0)144749239