[NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC involvement ICANN /Internet Governance Initiatives (1): 1Net

[Marilia Maciel]

Hi Bill,

Thank so much for this sequence of messages that help to keep us updated.
It has been an immense amount of information, thank you for taking the time
to summarize and make key info more palatable.

On the 1net discussions, I just would like to make a quick observation.
Since Bali, the iStar coalition has framed the debate as "let's do
something to preserve the current model, otherwise governments will control
the Internet". This idea has been repeated on the list as this
multistakeholder x intergov tension you mentioned. Nevertheless, I think
that it would be important to also include on the dominant narrative three
points:

a) The IG regime is not perfect. It had disfunctionalities pointed out even
before Snowden. So what we should do is not to conservatively try to
preserve the regime, but to creatively try to improve it;

b) The danger of dominance from governments does not necessarily come from
UN fora with potentially enlarged competences. There is a worse problem of
securitization of the agenda coupled with massive and pervasive
surveillance. The US is doing it efficiently, other countries would like to
have the same capabilities. Maybe we are barking at the wrong tree when we
focus so much attention at things like plenipot. I am not saying it is not
important, but a wiser allocation of energy is maybe needed;

c) There is too much focus on the problem of "intergovernamentalization" of
the regime, but not much attention on its privatization. De facto
regulation of our lives (our privacy, our freedom of expression) by private
companies is a problem. Opaque private agreements between network operators
and their impact on costs is a problem. Opaque development of standards
(which embody policy decisions) is a problem. Increasingly proprietary
standards and lack of interoperability as well. So I am not impressed that
many private actors are resistant to changes. Maybe non-comercial actors
could bring more balance to debate: too much govts can be bad, but too much
privatization may be negative as well.

Thanks again for that. Very useful.
Best
Marília


On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 3:09 PM, William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi
>
> As you may know, since the Bali IGF in October and the ICANN meeting in
> Buenos Aires in November,  there has been an enormous flurry of debate and
> activity around ICANN's role in global Internet governance processes,
> occasioned in particular by Fadi's various initiatives.   These are all
> working on very tight and hysteria-producing time frames and revealing
> various cross-cutting fissures in the ICANN community.  Broadly speaking,
> we can say that at present, NCUC/NCSG and At Large/ALAC have been the main
> supporters of the main lines of these initiatives, e.g. building on the I*
> organizations Montevideo Declaration calling inter alia for globalization
> of the USG roles and ICANN
> http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-07oct13-en.htm,
> while much of the various business grouping within ICANN remain reluctant
> or even opposed.   Hopefully through continuing dialogue etc. some minds
> will change and we can at a minimum get broad agreement on positions
> supporting 1) the multistakeholder model vs. various Intergovernmental
> gambits (e.g. three’s much concern about the ITU’s Plenipotentiary
> Conference in the Autumn); 2) a potential multistakeholder declaration of
> global IG principles; and 3) structured and forward moving discussion of
> globalization.  But we’ll see.
>
> A few minutes ago I forwarded an invite to a webinar on the fourth of
> Fadi's strategy panels.  Below and in subsequent messages I’ll mention
> other initiatives in which some NCUC members are currently involved, and in
> which one would think other members and indeed the constituency as a whole
> might want to engage.  (And obviously, those of you who are already tuned
> into all this, feel free to delete.)
>
> */1Net   *www.1net.org
>
> This is a new platform initiated by the technical community in Bali to
> foster multistakeholder dialogue between itself and business, civil
> society, and academia.  The near-term goal is to feed into the upcoming
> conference in Brazil (see next message)—both positions and people to
> populate the conference committees.  The longer-term goal is to sustain
> ongoing MS dialogue, coordination and collaboration geared toward
> preserving multistakeholderism in the face of intergovernmental challenges
> etc.
>
> 1Net has appointed a Steering Committee (which may be relabeled a
> Coordination Comm, we’ll see).  Consultations, some of them painful, have
> been underway within the respective stakeholder groups to select reps to
> the SC, and yesterday its list went live with the following
> representatives, which includes multiple NCUC members (in bold)
>
> On Jan 6, 2014, at 1:59 PM, Adiel Akplogan <adiel at afrinic.net> wrote:
>
>
> So far we have the following people representing Business, Civil Society
> and Academia on the list:
>
> -----< Business >------
> Aparna Sridhar
> David Fares
> Marilyn Cade
> Sarah Wynn-Williams
> Paul Mitchell
>
> ------< Civil Society >-------
> Anja Kovacs
> *Anriette Esterhuysen*
> *Vladimir Radunovik *
>
> *Rafik Dammak Joana Varon *
>
> ------< Academia >-------
> Angela Daly
> Ramesh Subramanian
> *Stefania Milan *
> *William Drake *
> Boubakar Barry
>
> The technical community is still in the process of selecting its
> representatives and we are expecting them to join us during the second part
> of January (as per their process timeline).
>
>
>
> Anyone can join the 1net discuss mailing list, which now has over 600
> people and is generating massive amounts of mail, some of it quite
> interesting, some of it eminently skippable (filters are your friend).  It
> would be great to see more NCUC members involved in the conversation, and
> 1net more generally as it takes shape in the months ahead….. *http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> <http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss>*
>
> Best
>
> Bill
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
*Marília Maciel*
Pesquisadora Gestora
Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade - FGV Direito Rio

Researcher and Coordinator
Center for Technology & Society - FGV Law School
http://direitorio.fgv.br/cts

DiploFoundation associate
www.diplomacy.edu
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