[discuss] JustNet Coalition contribution on Roadmap for the further evolution of the internet governance ecosystem for Netmundial.br

Fri Mar 14 07:35:30 UTC 2014

On Tuesday 11 March 2014 05:33 PM, S Moonesamy wrote:
> Hi Parminder,
> At 02:29 11-03-2014, parminder at itforchange.net wrote:
>> The preamble is the same, however the operative part is different. It
>> provided a roadmap for institutional reform in global governance. The
>> earlier document was about principles for Internet governance.
>>
>> Happy to provide any further clarification.
>
> If one of the aims of the proposal is to help developing countries, 
> could you please explain how it would help such a country?

Dear Moonesamy,

I am happy to explain...

To understand how the proposal 
<http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/democratising-global-governance-of-the-internet/164%20> 
from Just Net Coalition helps developing countries one needs to first 
understand 'what and who' shapes the evolution of the Internet today, as 
the Internet itself shapes our larger social structures, whereby the 
impact of this 'what and who' goes rather far and deep...

To keep it brief, it is my understanding that the following key 
political and economic forces shape the Internet today, in the 
decreasing order of impact;

 1.

    Extravagant profit motives of a few global corporation, almost all
    US based;

 2.

    The laws and policies of the US, which are enforced, overtly and
    subtly, on these global corporation; and,

 3.

    Policy framework of some clubs of rich countries, like the OECD and
    CoE (for instance, OCED's principles for Internet policy making).

There is huge nexus between 1 and 2, which together constitute the most 
powerful, in fact, quite overwhelming, force shaping the Internet today. 
Meanwhile, the US is largely able to bull-dodge its way with regard to 3 
above as well.

Apart from the above, Internet technical standards and critical resource 
management bodies, also have a strong impact. These bodies have swung 
between doing extremely good work to frequent capture by the above 
corporate interests. In my view, their public policy oversight while 
important is relatively the lesser problem right now as compared to 
other issues listed above.

Now, before we move forward to frame a response to the basic question 
you asked, 'how does the Just Net Coalition's (JNC) proposal 
<http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/democratising-global-governance-of-the-internet/164%20> 
help developing countries', we need to form some level of agreement on 
two propositions.

 1.

    The above is largely the right picture of the forces that are
    shaping the Internet today.

 2.

    Things are not going in the right directions with the evolution of
    the Internet vis a vis canons of equity and social justice (for
    instance, 10 top websites had respectively 25, 50 and 75 percent of
    the total page views in the US in 2000, 2005 and 2010, and things
    have gone considerably worse since).

If you strongly disagree with either of the above two propositions, 
JNC's proposal will make no sense to you. But if you do agree, there is 
a lot of ground for us to look at remedial political solutions. And I am 
ready to take up such a discussion, admitting that our proposed solution 
may only be one among many possible, and even perhaps not the best one. 
Our group, in its collective wisdom, thought that what is needed in the 
current context is an counter-magnetic field to the highly dominant 
forces today, that would be created by developing an anchor point inside 
the UN system which begins to undertake normative discussions on issues 
of Internet policies, and where needed comes up with higher norms and 
principles (as OECD has come up with), policy frameworks, and as and 
when needed, binding conventions and treaties.As happens with every 
sector in the UN, it will be much more about developing higher norms and 
principles, much fewer policy frameworks and rather infrequent 
conventions or treaties....

Such a counter magnetic field alone can even begin balancing the 
lopsidedness of the current political and economic model around the 
Internet, and it goes to reason that such a balancing will serve the 
interests of developing countries, in fact of all marginalized groups 
everywhere in the world.I hope you agree.

Regards

parminder

>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>

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