[WSIS CS-Plenary] WGIG Chronogical Account (text version)

Dr. Francis MUGUET muguet at mdpi.org
Wed Jan 26 23:35:14 GMT 2005


Dear Adam

I do not want to add anything more to this long thread.
I will reply to you privately, however. Those interested in my reply
may contact me, because it is not a secret.
I believe people had time now to make up their mind on this topic.
Since you are a co-coordinator of the IG group, if you want, I may
add comments from you, to the page containing the chronological
account.

Best regards

Francis

> At 1:45 AM +0100 1/21/05, Dr. Francis MUGUET wrote:
>
>>    Text version of
>> http://www.wsis-pct.org/wgig.html
>>
>>
>>
>>    * Chronogical Account of the Civil Society Process concerning the
>>    Establishment of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG)
>>    <http://www.wgig.org>
>>
>>    *
>
>
>
> Francis, thank you for your attempt at a chronology of events.
>
> I must apologize for being quiet during this discussion to date, busy 
> with some very hectic travel and I am reading email in a very 
> asynchronous way. But I would like to make some comments on this text 
> as it seems to be presented as some kind of official history of events.
>
> (Also, <http://www.too-much.tv> mentioned is down at the moment -- 
> domain name problem.)
>
>
>>
>> At 10:35 AM +0900 9/7/04, Adam Peake wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> After much deliberation on the process by which the candidate list 
>>> would be compiled, we, as coordinators of the Internet Governance 
>>> caucus have made the decision to invite each of the WSIS civil 
>>> society caucuses and working groups to suggest between one (1) and 
>>> three (3) names for inclusion on the candidate list.
>>>
>>> There is not agreement for this course of action among members of 
>>> the IG Caucus, but time is pressing and we feel WSIS Civil Society 
>>> must have an opportunity to participate in this process.  This can 
>>> work if we all try to make it work.  It means trying to think what 
>>> is best for civil society, and not any particular interest group. 
>>> Please read this note carefully. And refer to the draft statement on 
>>> structure of the WGIG you can find at this URL 
>>> <http://www.too-much.tv/internet_governance/> (Spanish, French, 
>>> English and Portuguese.)
>>>
>>
>
>
> And
>
>
>>
>> At 10:35 AM +0900 9/7/04, Adam Peake wrote:
>>
>>>  By asking for nominations from all of WSIS civil society we are 
>>> inviting a potentially large number of names to be submitted. Some 
>>> means of reducing the composite list we receive may be required. We 
>>> look forward to your advice on how we might handle this situation, 
>>> it is quite likely. We suggest discussions about this are started 
>>> now on the CS plenary list.
>>>
>
>
> Here is the crucial issue we are concerned about now.
>
> We warned it might be necessary to reduce the total number of nominees 
> (from something like 29 caucuses and WG and an anticipated 5-9 places) 
> to a slate we could propose to Mr. Kummer. We asked for advice from 
> Civil Society about how to do this.  No advice was given.
>
> We had raised the same issue earlier in the summer to the Bureau 
> (Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 01:54:20 +0900) and to the Plenary (Date: Sat, 
> 21 Aug 2004 01:21:10 +0900) and I think also to Content and Themes 
> when asking for advice on the statement about the structure of the 
> WGIG (the translated draft referred to above. I don't have a full 
> archive to refer to now.) It was an issue argued over in the Internet 
> governance caucus where some members felt that it would be impossible 
> for the plenary (collective caucuses and WG) to agree on shortlist of 
> names.
>
> We very clearly flagged that reducing the number suggested by all 
> caucuses (29+ to 5-9) might be a problem.
>
> We tried to present ideas for caucuses to follow that would help 
> reduce the potential problem, i.e. the criteria for making 
> recommendations (broadminded people who would be willing to represent 
> CS interests, listen and communicate), working with other caucuses and 
> thinking about the needs of civil society and diversity rather than 
> the narrower interests of the particular caucus/WG.
>
> With this background of course the nominating process wasn't perfect.

> However no one was able to offer advise when we asked.

It is disturbing that half a year later all we get is criticism.

>
> So what we have is an imperfect process that produced good results. By 
> any standard of what Civil Society has achieved in WSIS to date our 
> position in WGIG is strong.
>
> Towards the end of your history you write:
>
>
>>
>> At 1:45 AM +0100 1/21/05, Dr. Francis MUGUET wrote:
>>
>>> *Negative aspects* : The Internet Governance Caucus 
>>> <http://www.net-gov.org/> made a formal call to all working groups 
>>> to submit candidates that shall have been included in the list of 
>>> candidates that shall have been forwarded to Markus Kummer. It was 
>>> extremely clear : / In making your caucuses/working groups 
>>> recommendation, we request that you submit the following 
>>> information, which will be passed on to Mr. Kummer, with the names 
>>> of the candidates /.
>>> However, none of the candidates that have been selected by the 
>>> various thematic working groups and forwarded in time to Internet 
>>> Governance Caucus <http://www.net-gov.org/> have been included in 
>>> the candidates' list for WGIG membership, that has been presented to 
>>> Markus Kummer, in complete disregard with the rationale and promise 
>>> of the call made by the Internet Governance Caucus
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> What I wrote was:
>
>
>>
>> At 10:35 AM +0900 9/7/04, Adam Peake wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Members of the Internet governance caucus will aggregate the names 
>>> received and send them along with the name of the caucus/working 
>>> groups that made the nomination to Markus Kummer.  If any 
>>> reconsideration of names is required in light of issues arising from 
>>> the WGIG consultation on September 20-21 we will hold any relevant 
>>> discussions about this on the plenary mailing list.
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> Once the caucus' nominations had been received we told Mr. Kummer the 
> URL <http://www.net-gov.org/wgig/nominees.php> We did this before we 
> started the process of trying to present the reduced list. Information 
> about all caucus nominees is still online.
>
> It was then necessary to create a reduced list and Izumi Aizu wrote in 
> email informing Mr. Kummer of our recommendations:
>
>
>>> At 10:19 PM +0900 10/6/04, Adam Peake wrote:
>>
>
>   [I am quoting from Izumi's email I forwarded to the plenary list]
>
>>>>
>>>> We have setup a website for all the candidates recommended from
>>>> different Caucuses and Working Group/Families:
>>>>
>
>
> I think you imply that information about candidates was kept from Mr. 
> Kummer. This is not correct.

never did so

>
> OK.
>
>
> I hope it is clear that a great deal of time and effort went into 
> providing information to all the different civil society structures. 
> We tried to provide information about the process as best we knew it. 
> We asked for advice. We tried repeatedly to include and listen to all 
> civil society. We also repeatedly said that we had no intention of 
> trying to prevent any other caucus from recommending names to Mr. Kummer.
>
> We did not control deadlines we had to meet.  We had other issues to 
> consider such as recommendations about the structure and processes the 
> WGIG would adopt (also very successful from CS point of view.) And 
> there was of course lobbying from various people, which is always 
> tiresome to deal with (i.e. politely ignore.)
>
> We -- and now I also speak for Jeanette -- are very pleased to have 
> been involved with the work of the Internet governance caucus over the 
> past year.  Civil society is very prominently positioned in this 
> important part of WSIS phase two. We think the caucus has been 
> extremely successful in all interactions on WSIS Internet governance 
> (now the WGIG) to date.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Adam
> _______________________________________________
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> Plenary at wsis-cs.org
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>
>
>


-- 

------------------------------------------------------ 
Francis F. MUGUET Ph.D 

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