[WSIS CS-Plenary] IPR : building consensus

[Daniel Pimienta]

>For the first time in so many years I can perceive a deep coincidence of
>views with Daniel, I think I shall express it :-)
I guess I should start to get seriously worried :-).

The difference may be in the "so many years"... I have crossed Hervé's mail 
on my screen for more than 15 years and read Fede's only after WSIS started...

Of course, Internet Governance is not about governing the Information 
Society. Yet, the direct management of Internet resources may take us 
indirectly into the main issues of IS (like cultural diversity and the 
possibility to have domain names in one's character set; like IPR and 
protection of domain names; like ethic of information and spam) and 
situations where business and governments interests are at stake and play 
(not necessarily fair) behind the scenes. Just take the pre ICANN (IANA) 
documented example of the Haitian TLD (1997) and you will see what I mean.

Furthermore, beyond the large consensus that we do not want to see national 
governments nor UN type international body take over or maintain control 
(in the case of USA), one should bring clear answers to the alternatives. 
It's no more "let the technicians do the job approach" since the stakes are 
not merely technical. It's not enough to say what we do not want it to be, 
we need to define waht it will be.

The very process of management must be innovative in terms of process and 
participation, since it will pave the ground (set precedents) towards new 
paradigm for governance in the IS. This is how I read the past intents of 
ICANN with at-large membership, this is where multistakeholders approaches, 
for challenging they may be, have a very meaning. ICANN (and in that sense 
WGIG) has, beyond the management of Internet resources, a meta goal, which 
is to create workable alternative of global issues management outside 
pre-existing schemes. This is where civil society has a crucial role to 
play, with its experience of participative action and have to be ready to 
face challenging new approaches since the scheme to be invented must be 
multistakeholder by definition.

Now, we should be modest (personally I cannot answer right away your 
quetions Hervé of where is the exhaustive boundary wher IS issues express 
in IG - this requires thorough work), acknowledge the complexity of the 
challenge, and work together in a new area where tecnological knowledge may 
be necessary but certainly not sufficient. On that sense, I feel personally 
satisfied that people who has been selected in WGIG have the right skills, 
combining the appropriate technical background with the necessary 
experience dealing with IS perspectives and issues.

The question you have raised is to them to be adressed, pre processed and 
reported to plenary when it has reached a sufficient level of maturity. I 
do not think this is the space to act as a workgroup.

I'll come back to spam in another mail.