[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] About the scope of WGIG (re to Milton Mueller)

[Milton Mueller]

>>> Hervé Le Crosnier <herve at info.unicaen.fr> 09/12/04 12:04 PM >>>

>Last two mails from Milton Mueller give two
>contradictory ways for defining the role of WGIG.

I am very surprised by this. 
Perhaps you did not interpret my answers correctly.

>- in the first he oppose Richard Stallman who want
>  to keep intellectual property question out of the WGIG
>  responsability, attending, in Mueller opinion
>  that "There is more internet governance
>  activity around issues of intellectual property (especially
>  copyright and trademark) than perhaps any other issue area."

This is true. Moreover, IPR is part of Internet governance
whether we want it to be or not. If the WGIG does not deal
with it, then you leave the status quo in place. Do you support
IPR as it is now? 

>- in the second one, anwering Bertrand de la Chapelle,
>  he want to take out of the WGIG the question of
>  privacy in mobile communication because it's not part
>  of the usage of internet.

There is no contradiction here at all. If the Internet is not
involved, then the WGIG should not deal with it. 

>As almost everything in communication, entertainment, knowledge,
>culture, medicine... is moving into digital and spread all over
>the world using more or less IP protocols suite, any WGIG can
>easily encompass all problems, through expertise of those who
>know about the internal processe of the internet. This will
>cut off the ability of civil society to have different
>expertise and differents conflicts and differents leaders
>in differents areas.

You are asserting here two things: 1) WGIG can take on
"all problems," 2) civil society will be dis-empowered if the 
issues it cares about are handled via the WGIG process.

Both assertions are incorrect, in my opinion.

The WGIG cannot easily encompass "all problems" if
it keeps itself focused on the use of _Internet protocols_, 
which is what I am advocating. You should support my
approach to the definition, not oppose it.

Second, civil society has plenty of capacity to deal with human
rights issues, including intellectual property, in the context
of Internet governance. I don't know why you lack confidence
in our ability to do this. Maybe you can explain better. 

>As the Human Right caucus try to show us, some parts of the
>WSIS declaration (during the elaboration phase, hopefully,
>we succeed for most of the problems) are jeopardizing the
>whole corpus of Human Rights, as partial interpretations
>through the IS lenses can have profound negative impact
>over others other actions in the world to defend and extend
>Human rights.

If you think that this problem can be avoided by taking
things off the WGIG agenda, I believe you are wrong. 
By taking them off the WGIG agenda, all you do is
leave in place the narrow regimes (such as ICANN and
WIPO treaties). By leaving them undisturbed, you make it
impossible to promote hiuman rights norms on a global,
uniform basis. 

>I believe that the WGIG, and Internet Governance at large
>is about "the ancilary problems" of the interconnection.
>It's infrastructure gestion, through naming, protocols,
>interoperability,...

That unrealistically narrow concept of IG was abandoned
months ago. It cannot be sustained. Let me give you an
example. ICANN set up a system of rules known as UDRP
to protect trademarks in domain names. So, IPR rights
are embedded in the way we regulated domain names.

>All other problems (like IP rights on one hand, but also
>protocols issues which have the IETF in charge of on the
>other hand) have to be treated elsewhere

Where shall IPR issues be dealt with? In WIPO? Are you joking?

>But we, as civil society, have to be sure that not a decision
>of WSIS (neither of WGIG) are jeopardizing the efforts of
>IP activists, who encompass also other domains that the
>one we are working on (such as generic medicines, seed,...).

Again, you are misperceiving the situation, badly. 
IP activists should nominate people to get on the WGIG,
they should work with other CS activists who are active 
around the WGIG, and they should press forward their agenda
in the WGIG. 

>That's the great force of Civil society in this process :
>we are connected with others activists, experts, thinkers
>in all other fields of the global world recomposition
>which is processing in front of us now.

Yes, indeed we are. So why do you want to keep the domains
completely separate? 

--MM