Postponed: Renewal of the IGF Mandate

Sat Sep 6 03:54:31 EEST 2014

Thanks for this Bill, I am not quite sure whether you are suggesting we 
kill the letter and take it down??

The agreement that I have discussed with a few of the other 
stakeholders  is that separate but congruent letters (acknowledging the 
other letter but expressing nuance) is the way they/we are thinking of 
going.  If you have had separate discussions please lets talk so we dont 
get different messages going....I realize we are civil society so 
everyone gets to say what they like to whomever they like, but it would 
be really nice if we all pulled in the same direction.  I am keeping in 
touch with my country folks, perhaps we could share what we are 
permitted to share from each country as we learn about it?  and thanks 
for kicking off by sharing this!
Personally, having worked in government but not the UN, I would have 
been surprised if "open-ended" had sailed through anywhere, but we did 
incorporate three revisions from State Department so we gave them an 
opportunity, showed openness and the willingness to cooperate.
This is not a treaty, (I sound like I sounded at Netmundial) for 
heaven's sake, we do not need to slice words so that we fall to the 
lowest common denominator (which will not be enough for civil society) 
but we do need to consult cooperatively to avoid stupidity and language 
that is counter-productive to other ongoing negotiations only they 
(governments and industry) are aware of.  I think we look weak if we 
change the text of a letter we have signature on.  I think we weaken 
future campaigns if we kill this letter. I suggest we sign on to any 
future negotiated text which they come back with if we can, and attach 
the letter with all the signatures to it.  I think this is good 
practice, based on what I know from other exercises, but of course we 
can run that by governments to see if it damages the letter they come up 
with.  It is important to me that civil society show some consistency.

Finally, I would like to point out what I think is important when civil 
society is cooperating with government and industry:   it is *extremely* 
important the we always bargain in good faith and are honest. However, 
we need not always expect that treatment.  There is a lot of story 
telling and "back channeling" out there.   This is why we need to 
determine before an initiative, meeting or negotisation exactly where 
our bottom line is, well before hand (which was tough this time given 
the time frame, especially for me, a relative newbie at Netmundial and 
certainly not an inside player or power broker like many others on this 
list.
I would respectfully suggest that we need to do this on the Notmundial 
exercise (whatever they are calling it now) and if there are people 
going to the ITU plenipot, they need to consult the group on key issues 
and share whatever is not provided in confidence. I will certainly 
undertake to do that, as I expect to be preparing a short report on an 
upcoming meeting/debrief.

I realize I sound like an ex-government bureaucrat.  That is what I am.  
I humbly submit that I know something about these processes.  I am 
somewhat cynical because I have witnessed at close hand many 
attempts/strategies to jolly civil society along, keep them busy, and 
then dump their efforts.  This is not trout fishing, we are not fish to 
be played until we are completely exhausted.  We need to grab the fly 
and leave the hook behind. (apologies to non-english native speakers for 
this analogy).

Finally, I would like to thank Jeanette for working so hard with me (a 
total stranger) on this effort this week, and to all those who jumped in 
to help up, notably Matthew who came in a crisis and Anriette who hosted 
at the last minute at APC and put up with grumpy steph who had been up 
most of the night working on texts.  It was a real pleasure getting this 
done, and I do not think we should drop it, I think we should send it 
November 1 as planned, so if you don't object I shall continue to round 
up signatures and continue to work with Jeanette to figure out a process 
that does not conflict with what governments are doing.  I will of 
course focus on Canada, but there are other countries who might be 
willing to help us.

Stephanie

On 2014-09-06, 3:09, William Drake wrote:
> Hello
>
> Stephanie Perrin and Jeanette Hofmann of NCUC/SG were the drafters and 
> driving forces here so they can correct/amend/amplify the following: 
> This is no longer happening so at this point people need not keep 
> endorsing it.  It turned out that when the USG people floated it 
> internally first they got positive responses but then the legal types 
> who work on UNGA submissions came back with issues with the wording, 
> particularly the call for an “open ended” mandate (has a specific and 
> potentially problematic meaning in the UN), and then the Brazilians 
> and a few other friends governmentals came back with other language 
> changes.  This could not be sorted out in time, so Chris Painter, the 
> US Department of State Coordinator for Cyber Issues, simply said in 
> his speech at the closing that we acknowledge and applaud that 
> stakeholders are working on a proposal regarding renewal, or some such 
> thing (check the transcript).
>
> It would have been very nice to have ended the IGF with a ringing call 
> for a permanent mandate, which would have helped in the UNGA 
> negotiations next year over whether to review for the standard five 
> years, but taking the initiative from start to finish in a couple days 
> amidst the frenzy of an IGF meeting might have been over-optimistic if 
> civil society wanted governments to support it.  So now the ball has 
> started rolling and if friendly governments want to keep it that way 
> they will need to do intergovernmental consultations and see what they 
> can work out in order to get more governments to support, and CS will 
> need to coordinate with them.  If a new letter emerges from that 
> process, it’ll be different from what we’ve been endorsing, so we 
> might want to do a fresh round at that point.
>
> Best
>
> Bill
>
> On Sep 5, 2014, at 5:11 PM, DeeDee Halleck <deedeehalleck at GMAIL.COM 
> <mailto:deedeehalleck at GMAIL.COM>> wrote:
>
>> +1
>> DeeDee Halleck, Deep Dish Network
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Stephanie Perrin 
>> <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca 
>> <mailto:stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     Dear colleagues and fellow stakeholders of the Internet
>>     Governance Forum:
>>     This is further to our message of September 4th, portions of
>>     which follow:
>>
>>     At the 9th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, various
>>     stakeholders discussed their common desire to request an
>>     immediate extension of the IGF mandate, in order to create
>>     stabiity for the organization and predictability for those
>>     engaged in seeking funding for projects. We have drafted a
>>     statement to send to the UN, to request not just an immediate
>>     renewal of the IGF mandate, but rather an open-ended
>>     re-authorization of the IGF as a voluntary, multistakeholder
>>     forum. We request that other participants in the IGF also support
>>     this message on or before November 1.
>>      .......
>>     UPDATE
>>     We have created a neutral website for this project at
>>     www.igfcontinuation.org <http://www.igfcontinuity.org/>, to
>>     accept sign-ons of organizations, countries, and individuals.
>>     Please note that this is a different URL from the one circulated
>>     yesterday.
>>     The undersigned will continue to collect your signatures and
>>     description of your organization if you have
>>     trouble signing on.
>>
>>     As of 15:30 UTC+2, September 5 we have been open for signatures
>>     less than 24 hours, and we have 18 organizations, and 35
>>     individuals.
>>
>>     Examples of how you will be listed appear below, so please
>>     provide this information to us if you wish us to sign on for you.
>>     1. Jane Smith Individual
>>     2. Acme Industry Association Association representing 150
>>     manufacturers of widgets
>>     3. [Country x] Government Please do not hesitate to contact us if
>>     you have questions.
>>     Jeanette Hofmann, Berlin Social Science Center, jeanette at wzb.eu
>>     <mailto:jeanette at wzb.eu>
>>     Stephanie Perrin, Non-commercial Stakeholders Group, ICANN,
>>     stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca
>>     <mailto:stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> http://www.deepdishwavesofchange.org 
>> <http://www.deepdishwavesofchange.org/>
>

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