Hi,
The following are the updates I sent to the IGC and Bestbits lists
during the WGEC meeting.
_Day 1_
Well day one came and went.
We reviewed some of the recommendation that had not yet been reviewed,
and once again got hung up on the fundamental differences:
- Enhanced cooperation is only about governments
- Enhanced cooperation is about all stakeholders.
- Para 32 says all there is to say about Respective Roles and
Responsibilities
- Para 32 needs to be revisited to match reality.
- WGEC needs to deliver a consensus report
- WGEC can come out with a report that reports the varying models
- We trust the chair and he can write a chapeau discussing the
differences of viewpoint.
- we like the chair, but he is just human, we need to write up our own
viewpoints.
- we should go back to our hotels and write up a brief (several line)
opinion of Enhanced Cooperation and Multistakeholderism
- we don't need to do this but should continue working on trying to find
the item(s) we can reach consensus on.
(I expect most groups have been doing the homework just in case there is
a quiz)
The Sessions are broadcast live. I do not know if there are archived
recording, but there probably are - I will check. The CSTD secretariat
has come a long way in the short year this WG has been working. From a
first meeting where streaming was not possible, to a meeting 11 months
later, with streaming and remote participation for absent WG members -
not that any did participate as far as I know.
Process wise, Observers are allowed to comment but only in a 15 minute
slot just before breaks.
While we had brief reports on NETmundial, the IGF, ITU activities etc,
these were not discussed as there were those who argued that these were
not immediately relevant to the work of the WGEC which has its own
mandate. The chair concurred.
Tomorrow is another day.
avri
(a cs nominated member of the wgec)
_Day 2_
It was a long day. We finally made it through all of the proposed
recommendations that group members had offered. We are at least half a
day or more behind our schedule for the meeting.
We also had a discussion of the Correspondence group report. While the
report was appreciated by all, we developed yet another point of
fundamental disagreement:
- This is marvelous work that should become a living document
- This is a useful piece of work, but enough trying to understand, now
lets come to conclusions about new mechanisms and bodies to fill the gaps.
Discussions were robust, and some of the language remains bracketed and
needs further discussion.
The fundamental oppositional themes remained as subthemes, especially
the scope of Enhanced Cooperation:
- among governments
- among all stakeholders.
One of the longest discussions revolved around the need to include
discussions on issues related to marginalized peoples issues and women's
participation in the Internet governance as part of Enhanced
Cooperation. The fundamental group-division fed into the discussion:
- this discussion is a waste of time that keeps us from discussing the
real issue of Enhanced Cooperation - relationships between governments
and a new body wherein those discussions can be held
- this a critical component of Enhanced Cooperation among all stakeholders.
Neither side in the discussion could believe that the discussion went on
as long as it did. I am sure this discussion will resurface at some
point in day 3.
As it was apparent that there are, at least two models of Enhanced
Cooperation, there had been discussion the first day of including these
models in the document. This discussion continued the second day with
some some arguing:
- We should have a report on the things we could reach consensus on, and
there seem to be some such points
- we should discuss the various oppositional models.
At one point one of the protagonists argued that they were only
accepting certain text because they expected a document that would
include a model that rejected the relevance of the discussion of the
points they had just accepted.
We also did not manage to resolve the issues of whether we would have"
- a chair's report
- a WG group
Today's meeting starts at 9am (I better start getting ready) and is
likely to go until 9pm again as was the case on day 2.
A skeleton of the draft report was sent to the members.
A point I want to make in this sketchy report, some governments have
begun the move to argue that the WGEC is only having these oppositional
problems because it is trying to be a multistakeholder discussion. There
is every chance that a final oppositional impression is being set up:
- realizing that a 16 year fundamental difference of opinion needs more
a few days of meetings spread over a year to resolve
- the multistakeholder model is the root of all failure
Of course I realize that within the group of civil society readers of
the sketchy report, we have people on both sides of this discussion.
Finally there was a moment when an observer was reprimanded for using
twitter to say things that offended some WG members. To me, this showed
how really out of touch the whole WSIS based Tunis Agenda driven
discussions are in todays' world.
Or rather, how the opposition between the restriction of expression and
free expression are also one of the fundamental oppositions that
underlay our discussions.
avri
_Day 3_
And then there was the third day.
The last day.
We spent the morning wandering through the wilderness of repeated
arguments. Reviewing and revising recommendations that had not reached
consensus, and some that had reached rough consensus - what we needed
was to reach full consensus.
As we discussed them, sometimes we got tantalizingly close to full
consensus, but then one or another of us, and sometimes it was me I must
confess, said something that showed the closeness had been a tempting
illusion.
We had tea breaks and coffee breaks where the chair and various groups
discussed the state of discussions to try and figure out what to do next.
We had lunch.
We talked,
and we talked.
After lunch we finally admitted, in a consensual manner, that we were
not going to reach consensus on recommendations in this meeting.
So we talking about the WG report, or rather, the Chair's report.
Yes, we eventually did reach consensus on what to call the report!
We then started to discuss the form and content of the Chair's Reports.
Many of us told the Chair how much we trusted him to write the report
and be fair.
Some of us went on to tell him what he had to avoid saying in order to
be fair. Maybe some trust is only skin deep.
We went back on forth on what to do with the most valuable work done by
the correspondence group. Some of us wanted it to continue and become a
living artifact, and wanted that point made to the powers-that-be in the
CSTD. Others said it was just an exercise of the WG and should be
dropped - but i think that for these people the results of that work had
not verified their view that there were huge gaps to be fill
(ok, so I am showing some prejudice in that last statement, please
forgive me. One of the few things that really bothered me during the
meeting was the apparent disrespect shown to the brave and worthy
volunteers who took on this large body of work only to have their
efforts deprecated - and no i did not help them and was not part of the
workforce - it was too hard a job for me and I avoided it like a plague.)
As for the future, there may be further meetings.
There may not be.
If there are, they may occur this year.
Or they may occur next year.
I personally hope that we continue the work. but I hope we wait until
after all of Internet governance 2014 events are over, and after all
stakeholders have had time to adjust to the new realities that
NETmundial presents. And after the IGF, which I hope learns something
from NETmundial, and after the ITU PleniPot 2014 does whatever it is
going to do.
I thought the meetings were valuable. I think the participants, and I
hope their fellow stakeholders - however they define the groups they are
part of, have a better understanding now than they did before.
And while we did not come together in final consensus, I thought some of
the couplings at the meeting where wonderful. For example the KSA and
Iran, normally not the best of friends, were bosom buddies at this
meeting, united in their arguments on women's rights, treatment of
marginalized groups and a host of other issues. It is good that there
are still some things that can bring enemies such as this together. And
to see civil society members working closely with governments and with
business was a good thing too. If we can't work with the people we
disagree with, how are we going to solve anything - we learn to build on
the few things we do disagree with.
Now I sound almost maudlin!
One last thing:
There was a possibility, as I mentioned in another one of these Quick
Updates that we would need to submit _Opinions_. While we never did, as
we never reached consensus to do so, several groups did arrive at a
possible offering. Several of us from civil society, though not all by
any means, did develop one. While I will leave it for the others who
worked on this with me to associate with it or not, and thus to put
themselves on the line to have to explain it, I am including this
compromise proto-document below as I think it includes a fair number of
ideas that are worthy of the light of day and of further discussion.
Signing out from Geneva airport and the WGEC, at least for now
Who knows what the future will bring.
avri
----------------------
The Opinion
This is the draft opinion of a group of Civil society participants
including group members Avri Doria, ...
---
Definitions
Enhanced Cooperation: an ongoing multistakeholder and multilateral
process where all stakeholders contribute according to their expertise
and interests, to enable all other stakeholders to achieve full
participation in order to improve and democratise the governance of the
Internet at all levels.
Multistakeholder process: a form of participatory democracy where any
person, alone or as part of a group, can contribute fully.
Equal footing: the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by all
stakeholders, on the basis of equality and without discrimination, of
the freedom to participate in multistakeholder processes. In Internet
governance this is in line with stakeholders' roles and
responsibilities, which should be interpreted in a flexible manner with
reference to the issue under discussion. As with UN representation by
governments, where all are equal regardless of size or wealth,
contributions should be judged on their quality, and not by the number
of people that a representative may claim.
Possible outcome:
There is support within civil society for establishing a
multistakeholder mechanism, to promote the ongoing monitoring and
analysis of Internet-governance developments, and the on-demand sharing
of knowledge on policy issues, models and experiences that governments
and stakeholders need to help them identify effective solutions. We view
this as a first step, building on the work of the Correspondence Group
of the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. There is also support
within civil society for a second step of a multistakeholder
coordination mechanism that would recommend the most appropriate venue
or venues to develop further policy as required. This could be
accomplished through existing institutions as appropriate.
This mechanism could be attached to an existing multistakeholder body
such the IGF (per paragraph 72 b of the Tunis Agenda), to the UN
Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), or to any
comparable consistent with the guiding principles as established in the
NETmundial Multistakeholder statement.
The discussions of the WGEC take their origin from the Tunis Agenda.
The Tunis Agenda was a remarkable document for its time, that resulted
from government discussions at WSIS. The Tunis Agenda laid a basis for
ongoing discussions. The Tunis Agenda's great value was in giving an
impetus to the development of the multistakeholder model in Internet
governance. Over the intervening years, the variety of multistakeholder
models have progressed beyond what could have been imagined in 2005, in
line with technological evolution. Allowing the Tunis Agenda to remain a
static document, as if it was written in stone, risks it becoming ever
more irrelevant in today's world; Instead, we recommend that it be
treated as a living document, a solid foundation upon which we can build
our understanding of the enhanced cooperation of all stakeholders in the
area of Internet governance.
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