[WSIS CS-Plenary] [Re: Fwd: .....] Read the letter from Condoleeza that won the internet governance battle

[David Allen]

>Read the letter that won the internet governance battle By Kieren 
>McCarthy Published Friday 2nd December 2005 09:07 GMT
>
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/02/rice_eu_letter/print.html
>
>The World Summit in Tunis last month was overshadowed by the global 
>argument over internet governance.
>
>Its biggest controversy came with the proposition put forward by the 
>EU a month earlier
>
>...

To have the letter to read is entirely interesting.

But the conclusion that this 'won' the battle for the US is, for me 
anyway, akin to suggesting there is a 'war on terror' that will be 
'won.'  Sorry, for mixing the steam of that politics into the steam 
of this ...

I appreciate, as I suspect we most all do, that there are about as 
many interpretations of the outcomes for WSIS as there are people 
offering opinions.  Here is (one of) mine:

In a consensus process, any single entity. large or small, can stop 
the show.  It seemed clear as far back as two years ago that the US 
position would not change.  When the outcome is foreordained by the 
consensus rule, that is no more a 'win' than, say, the proverbial 
'taking candy from a baby' is a win.  The big guy may have candy, but 
we knew that would be the case before we saw it actually happen.  A 
win requires something to be up for grabs, in advance.  But this is 
semantics, if not sophistry; what matters here?

Yes, overt change in the status quo did not appear.  But the main 
outcome - the event that constituted real motion, and the only real 
item in question - was the commitment to a place where there will be 
ongoing dialog, the Forum.  Kieren McCarthy, the reporter for the 
Register who posted the Rice letter story has just today posted a 
story that suggests the pressures - seemingly inevitable - to be 
exposed going forward: 
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/05/minc_icann_letter/>Bush 
administration control will cause net to split .  In my view anyway, 
the McCarthy article today reverses the conclusion he drew with the 
Rice letter.  Rather than a win, there is just the reverse - the 
campaign goes on.

Which, again in my view, gives compelling reason for us to 
concentrate on the arrangements for that dialog, particularly the 
people and the agenda.  But then, what matters, if not people and 
agenda?!

Footnote:  Another of the - key - 'consequences' of WSIS, again in my 
view of course, was a gigantic consciousness-raising, around the 
world.  Tim Kelly and his team's extraordinary 
<http://www.itu.int/wsis/stocktaking/index.html>stocktaking, with 
approaching 2,500 reported projects, is testament.  As far as 
governance was concerned, everyone could read the likelihood that the 
US position would not change.  If that meant there was less heat and 
lather as PrepCom 3bis more or less genteelly rolled to its final 
midnight hour, that did not prevent the evolution of thinking on any 
number of national fronts around the world, across the several years. 
There was a - very - wide conscious-raising, on the governance front, 
with some dramatically surprising emergence of new positions (leading 
among others to the Rice letter).

That evolution will surely continue - may we hope so, to arrive at 
what must be a most artful understanding of a most complicated 
challenge.  We need to get this right, and it will not be easy.

(In case you wonder, I have previously emailed K McCarthy on this score.)

David Allen
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