On Apr 6, 2015, at 11:42 PM, William Drake <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> So, where do we go to develop solutions - policy proposals, draft
>> laws and regulations, etc?  Still not the IGF, evidently.
>
> Valid question with no answer. This was something we kind of disagreed
> on back at the aborted launch meeting at WEF last August when you were
> saying, if I recall correctly, that NMI should indeed have some
> normative role e.g. with respect to elaborating and specifying the NM
> principles.  I understand the concern about the lack of a mechanism
> for such work, but felt from the start that the errors in roll out and
> framing of NMI and the decision to link in WEF were inevitably going
> to generate a lot of backlash, lack of buy in and end of the world
> hysteria from key actors, so any effort to arrogate to NMI such a role
> was going to be radioactive and sink the thing before it left port.

(Sorry for the long delayed reply.  Vacation last week.)  I accept all
of what you say above.

> Maybe we’ll end up having to live with an UNCTAD/CSTD program that can
> study and make recs; they’re already increasingly active on global
> e-commerce anyway. Wouldn’t be the worst thing, given the old saw that
> the acronym means Under No Circumstances Take Any Decisions.  It’d be
> great if the IGF could evolve to provide a convincing alternative, as
> you argued for in your book chapter, but I don’t see it either.  The
> whole discussion of intersessional work has been redirected to best
> practice forums

Yes this is why I've been a little reticent to pour my time into those.
 But I'm feeling a little more optimistic about the incipient plans for
a deliberative poll ahead of the next IGF (DP@IGF), which I'm hoping
will be a proof of concept of something that the IGF could easily have
done on its own account... and maybe, in future, will.  Even so, it's
increasingly wearying to continue incanting "next year, next year" which
is why, although I really disliked the execution of the NETmundial
Initiative, I was glad of a proposal—any proposal—to fill some of the
remaining gaps in the IG ecosystem.

> Which could be a start, but obviously short of what you’d like.  It’d
> have been good if we could have gotten more CS engagement on the
> intersessional stuff at the foundational moment, but messages to Best
> Bits etc. generated little interest.  CS remains all over the place
> and hence nowhere on this, methinks; I see no organized desire to take
> the IGF seriously as a policy platform consistent with the TA mandate.
>  People have moved on.

Unfortunately "multi-stakeholderism" has become toxic for a significant
segment of civil society over a relatively short space of time, and JNC
have played a significant part in that, damaging both the IGF and other
civil society initiatives along the way (which is why Best Bits has been
regrouping lately rather than taking a lead as before).  I predict
however that once the Internet Social Forum fails to change their world,
multi-stakeholder processes may swing back into favour.

> Sure, and if you’d like to comment on the ToR to the effect that it
> lacks suitable ambition and a needed policy role, have at it.  Fadi
> might pleased that someone finally ‘gets it.’

I had already submitted something along those lines, just suggesting
that the ToR should not completely close the door to its incubation of
projects for the development of policy proposals - of which DP@IGF
project is arguably one.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm PhD LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet lawyer, ICT policy advocate, geek
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