Thanks for your note and nice to meet you BTW.
In the early years of the IGF liftoff the initial MAG meetings were very tense as all the polarizing issues raised just prior in WSIS were still in the air and the various sides were strategizing heavily on how to control the narrative and meeting agendas. In particular, the tech and business communities and their supporters in OECD governments were very worried that the IGF would be overly focused on ICANN and its perceived shortcomings and demands for a new UN body with superpowers inter alia to ‘oversee’ ICANN, so much so that the WSIS-era code word for names number root system etc.---critical Internet resources---could not be addressed in the initial 2006 Athens program. (by way of explanation you can look at the chapter 'Critical Internet Resources: Coping with the Elephant in the Room’ by NCUCer Jeanette Hofmann in the book I edited based on the Sharm meeting
http://amzn.to/1Y2sKqc, and the chapter 'A critical look at critical Internet resources, since WGIG’ by Paul Wilson and Pablo Hinojosa in the booked I edited for the WGIG’s 10th anniversary
http://amzn.to/22IcHi3). So in that period, calls, particularly from NCUC members and others in civil society, for full transparency, openness to observers, and remote participation in the MAG meetings were denied, and the best we could get was Chatham-based post hoc summaries of the MAG’s closed mail list.
But people keep kept pressing for more, in keeping with the original WGIG vision and subsequent TA mandate, and as comfort levels increased people unclenched and we were progressively to get these things. Now the F2F meets are open to all whose atoms are in Geneva, the sessions have remote participation, there are no secret documents involved, and the IGF uses a publicly archived mail list (if memory serves a private one was retained for sensitive discussions of people, e.g. possibilities for the main sessions, but I don’t recall that we really used it much when I was a member). Sorry, I don’t remember the precise dates on which each of these shifts happened but the info should be on the website.
So there has been institutionalized in the collective mind and in the concrete practice of the ‘IGF community’ (those who are actively engaged and care about building this multistakeholder process) a strong presumption that everything should be open and fairly bottom up. However, the UN bureaucracy has never bought into this, at least with respect to its own operations. So the stakeholders nominate candidates to the MAG bottom up but DESA decides among these in a black box fashion. So reports for ECOSOC about the IGF’s progress get commissioned and then buried by DESA without informing community reps on the MAG. So consultations and decisions happen between the DESA and various powers that be behind closed doors with no reporting. So swank retreats with unclear mandates and authority get decided and announced by DESA without any consultation with the MAG, and when people like me and Avri and Renata jump up and down on various lists about the need for transparency and remote participation, we get back as a grudging answer that maybe some sessions of the retreat can be reported out on a Chatham basis. This is inconsistent with the norms and processes the community has established, and is regressive. Hence the discussion.
In other contexts Chatham can be quite useful and is a step toward opening closed processes. Here it is a step toward closing open processes.
Hope that helps,
Bill
William,
It seemed to me that you were implying that the Chatham House style is
obviously bad. It is not. There are benefits and drawbacks.
I'd be interested to hear what the "various reasons" are that the IGF
does not use it. You know, for transparency. ;) (Ideally you can just
point me to the documentation about this...)
Cheers,
--
Shane
At 2016-06-03 13:31:44 +0200
William Drake <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi
Thanks Shane. I’m familiar with the rule. We don’t use it in the IGF, for various reasons, at least not since the early tense days of the MAG.
Bill
On Jun 3, 2016, at 12:13, Shane Kerr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
William,
At 2016-06-03 11:13:55 +0200
William Drake <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
On Jun 3, 2016, at 02:06, avri doria <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Chatham House style (content w/o attribution)
In true bottom up transparent community driven IGF fashion….not.
To be honest, that doesn't seem too horrible. The Chatham House rule is
there for a reason:
Q. What are the benefits of using the Rule?
A. It allows people to speak as individuals, and to express views
that may not be those of their organizations, and therefore it
encourages free discussion. People usually feel more relaxed if
they don't have to worry about their reputation or the implications
if they are publicly quoted.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/about/chatham-house-rule
Cheers,
--
Shane - speaking only for myself ;)
*************************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
University of Zurich, Switzerland
[log in to unmask] (direct), [log in to unmask] (lists),
www.williamdrake.org
The Working Group on Internet Governance - 10th Anniversary Reflections
New book at http://amzn.to/22hWZxC
*************************************************************
*************************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
University of Zurich, Switzerland
[log in to unmask] (direct),
[log in to unmask] (lists),
www.williamdrake.orgThe Working Group on Internet Governance - 10th Anniversary ReflectionsNew book at
http://amzn.to/22hWZxC*************************************************************