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At 18:52 12/04/2014, Milton L Mueller wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">she missed an important
opportunity to impose some discipline on ICANN and the
USG.</blockquote><br>
This is may be because she does not want to get involved in internal
ICANN details. Either ICANN presents an acceptable proposition, or it
does not and demonstrates this way that it is not fit for the job to be a
stand-alone NTIA replacement. <br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">At a more philosophical level I
also have a feeling that her view is confusing or incoherent on a
specific topic, namely �democratic� governance. She speaks repeatedly
about �democratic principles� and �democratic process,� as do many on
this list. However, those principles and processes typically are rooted
in citizenship in a particular nation state with its own (territorially
exclusive) legal regime and rights. Moreover, democracy in this sense
inherently involves a single, centralized government. She says this in
the context of critiquing or expressing reservations about
�self-organization.� At the same time, she praises �<b>distributed
institutional models for Internet governance, avoiding centralised
solutions as a default.� I find these expressions to be contradictory, or
at least not well thought-out. Distributed, networked governance is never
going to be �democratic� in the classic sense, and democratic governance
is never going to be as distributed and flexible as self-organization by
engaged stakeholders. There is a tradeoff here, and in a transnational
context you can�t really call for �democracy� unless you are also calling
for a centralized world government. Kroes is a politician not a political
philosopher or theorist, but I think it�s important to flag this.
</b></blockquote><br>
You allude in part to what I call polycracy as an entirely different
system from monocracy, aristocracy, diktyocracy (actually a
kind of layered networked MSism), and democracy. The same as
each of this systems have variants, the polycracy she culturally
envisions can only be enschrined in the european institutional
philosophy of subsdirarity and substitution. You can certainly envision
that a responsibility is distributed through subsidiarity and
democratically assumed locally. Also that a substitution is carried
democratically among the subsituted subsidiaries.<br><br>
This is the DNSA you proposed (I stay at the TLD layer). Some TLDs could
be democratically managed, for example for a City like N-Y or Paris. And
the DNSA to be democratically managed among TLDs. This is a form of
MSism. MSism and European concertation can be similar, but US MSism is
not documented enough: this is part of the WSIS enhanced coalition system
that was to be experimented and ICANN de facto delayed.<br><br>
jfc<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><b> <br>
--MM<br>
</b> <br>
<a name="_MailEndCompose"></a> <br>
<b>From:</b> discuss-bounces@1net.org
[<a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@1net.org" eudora="autourl">
mailto:discuss-bounces@1net.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Andrea
Glorioso<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, April 11, 2014 12:04 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> 1net<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [discuss] NETmundial / Neelie Kroes: My thoughts on
NETmundial and the Future of Internet Governance<br>
<br>
[ Apologies if you receive this message multiple times ]<br>
Dear all,<br>
you might be interested to read the recent blog post of Neelie Kroes,
Vice-President of the European Commission and member of the High-Level
Multistakeholder Committee of NETmundial, available at
<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/my-thoughts-netmundial-and-future-internet-governance">
https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/my-thoughts-netmundial-and-future-internet-governance</a>
and reproduced below.<br>
<br><br>
<br>
<h1><b>My thoughts on NETmundial and the Future of Internet Governance
</b></h1><br><br>
Published by
<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/users/neelie-kroes">
Neelie KROES</a> on Friday, 11/04/2014 <br><br>
As the European Commission clearly stated in its
<a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-142_en.htm">
Communication on Internet Policy and Governance</a> of 12 February 2014,
conflicting visions on the future of the Internet and on how to
strengthen its multistakeholder governance in a sustainable manner have
intensified recently. The next two years will be critical in redrawing
the global map of Internet governance. Europe must contribute to finding
a credible way forward for global internet governance; it must play a
strong role in defining how the internet is run and ensuring it remains a
single, un-fragmented network.<br><br>
In less than two weeks, I will be travelling to Sao Paulo to attend
<a href="http://netmundial.br/">NETmundial, the Multi-stakeholder Meeting
on the Future of Internet Governance</a>. The purpose of NETmundial is to
develop principles of Internet governance and a roadmap for the future
development of this ecosystem. This international conference comes at a
very timely moment in the debates on Internet governance and I commend
the Brazilian government, and in particular President Dilma Rousseff, for
taking this important initiative.<br><br>
I was very pleased that the Brazilian Government asked me to join the
<a href="http://netmundial.br/hlmc/">High-Level Multi-stakeholder
Committee of NETmundial</a>, which oversees the overall strategy of the
meeting and fosters the involvement of the international
community.<br><br>
The members of the High-Level Multi-stakeholder Committee recently
received a "draft outcome document", prepared on the basis of
the <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/docs/contribs">more than 180
comments and submissions</a> (including
<a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/177">
two</a>
<a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/internet-governance-principles/176">
submissions</a> by the European Commission) to the conference. A
<a href="http://netmundial.br/blog/2014/04/08/information-regarding-the-draft-outcome-document/">
public consultation on the outcome document</a> is going to be launched
by the conference organisers very shortly.<br><br>
In the meantime, I shared my observations on this draft document with my
colleagues in the High-Level Multi-Stakeholder Committee, the co-chairs
of the drafting team and with the secretariat of the conference; in a
spirit of transparency, I would like to also share them with the broader
Internet community.<br><br>
++++++++<br><br>
<b>From: KROES Neelie (CAB-KROES)<br>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2014 7:26 PM</b><br>
<b>To:
'<a href="mailto:hlmc@netmundial.br">hlmc@netmundial.br</a>'</b><br>
<b>Subject: RE: [HLMC] NETmundial draft outcome document<br>
</b><br>
<br><br>
<b>Dear colleagues,<br>
</b><br>
<b>I read with great interest the "draft outcome document" for
NETmundial prepared by the Executive Meeting Committee (EMC). I would
like to thank the members of the EMC and the colleagues who supported
them for the hard work that went into drafting the document in such a
short amount of time.<br>
</b><br>
<b>On behalf of the European Commission, I would like to share with you a
number of observations and considerations, which I trust will be useful
as we move forward towards meeting each other in Sao Paulo in two weeks'
time.<br>
</b><br>
<b>It is in my view absolutely essential that we make a collective effort
to ensure that the final outcomes of NETmundial are concrete and
actionable, with clear milestones and with a realistic but ambitious
timeline. As I had the occasion to underline throughout my tenure as EU
Commissioner for the Digital Agenda and responsible for EU Internet
governance policies - and as the European Commission clearly asserted in
our recent Communication on Internet Policy and Governance - I strongly
believe that we need to put on the table an evolutionary but concrete
agenda for addressing the limitations � whether real or perceived � of
the current multi-stakeholder model for the governance of the
Internet.<br>
</b><br>
<b>In this sense, I regret to say that I find the draft outcome document
too abstract and vague when it comes to the proposed roadmap. I
understand the challenges that the EMC had to face in summarising the
many contributions that were submitted, and I trust my remarks will be
taken as a constructive contribution; but I am convinced this outcome
document, as it stands, will be interpreted as putting off necessary
discussions � in particular by those who have different opinion as to the
value and effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder model.<br>
</b><br>
<b>To be clear, I am not arguing that all substantive issues should be
"solved" in Sao Paulo. This is neither the purpose of the
meeting nor a realistic achievement to plan for, and indeed we need to
have a targeted number of issues to address over the two days. However,
NETmundial should definitively mark a significant "change of
pace" in the discussions and deliberations that have taken place so
far. My own experience in public service suggests that a necessary
condition to achieve such objective is to start from a substantially more
ambitious point of departure than is currently the case.<br>
</b><br>
<b>There are a few other observations on the draft outcome document that
I would like to make at this point in time.<br>
</b><br>
<b>First of all, I found some of the language related to human rights
unnecessarily weak. I refer in particular to the passage "Internet
governance should be open, participatory, Multistakeholder,
technology-neutral, sensitive to human rights". We have an
obligation to respect and promote human rights, not merely be
"sensitive" to them, and this should be clearly reflected
throughout the outcome document. This includes, among a number of
important issues, the protection of privacy and personal data protection,
which should have a prominent role in the outcome document.<br>
</b><br>
<b>Secondly, self-regulation and self-organisation of different
stakeholders are certainly to be preserved and promoted. However, this
cannot be to the detriment of basic democratic principles. It is not
sufficient that the mechanisms through which "different stakeholder
groups [�] self-manage their processes [are] based on publicly known
mechanisms", if this results in the explicit or implicit exclusion
of persons in a manner that would contradict democratic processes.<br>
</b><br>
<b>Thirdly, I am glad that the draft outcome document recognises the
importance of distributed institutional models for Internet governance,
avoiding centralised solutions as a default. This is very much in line
with the position of the European Commission that stronger interactions
between stakeholders involved in Internet governance should be fostered
via cross-cutting, issue-based dialogues, instead of through new bodies.
This would allow relevant stakeholders to address specific challenges
across structural and organisational boundaries. Such arrangements should
be inspired by the distributed architecture of the Internet which should
serve as a model for better interactions between all parties.<br>
</b><br>
<b>In this light, let me underline that in order for such distributed
models to truly work, especially for people, organisations and countries
with fewer resources to devote to this policy area, it is absolutely
essential that the right ICT tools are globally available. The draft
outcome document does refer to this, in particular in regard to remote
participation in meetings and discussions. I believe we should be more
ambitious and look more carefully at the role that ICTs, including Big
Data technologies, can play in this context. The European Commission is
addressing this challenge via the Global Internet Policy Observatory
(GIPO) initiative. I would be glad to share further details and explore
how we could join forces in this endeavour, possibly as a concrete
deliverable of NETmundial.<br>
</b><br>
<b>Fourthly, I cannot stress enough how important it is that we keep the
momentum towards a real and effective globalisation of core Internet
functions and decisions. This is perhaps one of the most essential
conditions to satisfy if we want the multi-stakeholder model for Internet
governance to be seen as truly legitimate across the world. I have
already had the occasion to congratulate the United States Government for
its announcement of 14 March 2014, concerning the globalisation of
certain IANA functions; I am therefore pleased that the draft outcome
document specifically mentions the globalisation of both IANA and ICANN.
I want nonetheless to underline that any such movement towards further
globalisation of Internet processes should firmly and explicitly keep the
public interest as a primary condition.<br>
</b><br>
<b>I appreciate that the EMC in its proposal has tried to take maximum
account of the contributions received. However, I think that the
conference should not overextend the areas it wants to cover
meaningfully. <br>
</b><br>
<b>I am not convinced, for example, that the outcome document should or
indeed needs to touch upon issues such as "network neutrality"
and the liability of Internet intermediaries. Both are certainly very
important issues in the overall debate on an open Internet, but are the
subject of detailed discussions elsewhere. <br>
</b><br>
<b>On Net Neutrality for example, legislators of the European Union are
at this very moment engaged in a democratic debate on the "Connected
Continent" proposal by the European Commission. I understand a
similar debate is taking place in Brazil, on the "Marco Civil".
We should not be seen as prejudging the outcome of a democratic procedure
on such sensitive topics. <br>
</b><br>
<b>As regards the topic of the liability of intermediaries, I believe
there is no added value in referring, via potentially contentious
language, to an issue which has extensively been debated in many
different settings and democratic fora and has in some cases been
enshrined in legislation, as is the case of the European Union. <br>
</b><br>
<b>I trust the above observations will be taken with the same
constructive spirit with which I wrote them. I am looking forward to
meeting all of you in Sao Paulo.<br>
</b><br>
<br><br>
<b>Yours sincerely,<br>
</b><br>
<b>Neelie Kroes<br>
</b><br>
<b>Vice-President of the European Commission"<br>
</b><br>
Best regards,<br>
--<br>
Andrea Glorioso (Mr)<br>
European Commission - DG Communication Networks, Content and
Technology<br>
Unit D1 (International relations) + Task Force on Internet Policy
Development<br>
Avenue de Beaulieu 25 (4/64) / B-1049 / Brussels / Belgium<br>
T: +32-2-29-97682 M: +32-460-797-682 E:
<a href="mailto:Andrea.Glorioso@ec.europa.eu">
Andrea.Glorioso@ec.europa.eu</a><br>
Twitter: @andreaglorioso<br>
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https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso</a><br>
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<br>
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