[Privsec] Defining transparency

[karen banks]

hi gus

can i share these comments with other CS reps on the WGIG?

karen

At 09:04 18/02/2005, Gus Hosein wrote:
>I really wish I was in Geneva, knowing now that you all are working on 
>such issues.
>
>I've made a few edits, and have a couple of points to raise that we may 
>want to have at the back of our minds but we probably don't want to commit 
>to paper.
>
>The whole point about policy laundering is that governments do forum 
>shifting/shopping.  They move from governance-organization to 
>governance-organization until they get what they want.  And while some are 
>very open and democratic (the CoE, for example) they will push to have a 
>closed process within there (and even the Parliament that oversaw the 
>convention spent most of its time criticising it for not protecting human 
>rights because it didn't ban hate speech).  And if they don't like what 
>they get (e.g. retention was refused at the CoE) they go elsewhere (they 
>went to the completely undemocratic, closed, unaccountable G8).  This is 
>why all important UN decisions tend to be made in the Security Council.
>
>So, by asking for Transparency, Accountability, and Democracy we have to 
>acknowledge that governments will find ways to circumvent this unless we 
>are strategic and reasonable.  This is why I opposed Bill Drake's attempt 
>to include ILETS as a forum for openness -- ILETS is not an IGO 
>(inter-governmental org), does not have a secretariat, and is so informal 
>that if we forced it open they will just convene a different meeting in a 
>different meeting room.
>
>That is why I rant against governance and international co-operation 
>generally.  The ailment is not the IGO, but national governments themselves.
>
>Finally, I don't know if democracy and multi-stakeholderism is a good 
>thing in these fora.  Not only can governments go to other fora, but I am 
>not sure who I want sitting at that table speaking on behalf of 'civil 
>society'.  Would I want Amnesty International speaking at the CoE?  Human 
>Rights Watch at the G8? Womens' Groups speaking on the need to combat 
>organized crime?
>
>At the G8 meetings, the U.S. delegation was the only one to include civil 
>society.  At first they included the Consumers Union representative who 
>specialised on fraud.  That annoyed us.  Then they put on CDT.  Then they 
>put on ACLU.  The Americans got better; but the other delegations did not 
>act similarly, so we had the ACLU 'representing' global civil society 
>concerns when in reality its mandate cares little about what goes on 
>outside of the U.S. (but fortunately the representative was Barry Steinhardt).
>
>So, my point is this:  perhaps the best way to open all these orgs up is 
>to make the national governments accountable, the international 
>organisations transparent, and recognize that international obligations 
>within democratic systems are not necessarily legitimate and should be 
>questioned.
>
>This is what we're aiming for with the policy laundering project.
>
>keep well...
>
>gus.
>
>At 07:35 18/02/2005, karen banks wrote:
>>let me know what you think of this, edits, revisions etc..
>>
>>it's a good start - and criteria we would be aiming to apply to IG 
>>mechanisms/institutions
>>
>>karen
>>
>>>Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:00:59 +0100 (CET)
>>>From: "Vittorio Bertola" <vb at bertola.eu.org>
>>>To: wgig-discuss at wgig.org
>>>Subject: [wgig-discuss] Defining transparency
>>>
>>>All,
>>>
>>>while listening to the afternoon discussion, I have tried to prepare a
>>>list of possible criteria to describe better what we mean by transparent,
>>>accountable, democratic, incorporating my ideas as well as many points
>>>mentioned by others.
>>>
>>>I think that a list like this one could be included in our final report as
>>>best practices, if not requirements, for Internet Governance processes;
>>>so, if we all like the idea, we could take the attached draft as a
>>>starting point and (perhaps through a sub-group of volunteers in the next
>>>weeks) work on it to finalize it.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>--
>>>vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
>>>http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Vecchio sito, nuovo toblòg...
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>wgig-discuss mailing list
>>>wgig-discuss at wgig.org
>>>http://wgig.org/mailman/listinfo/wgig-discuss_wgig.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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