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Here is a brief report of the 2015 Best Bits meeting in João Pessoa:

1. Policy slam and introductions Participants introduced themselves and briefly explained the issues that they are working on, to enable informal connections and collaborations to be made.
2. Criteria of meaningful stakeholder inclusion in Internet governance Two papers on the topic of the delicate balance between multi-stakeholder processes and democratic legitimacy was presented, and there was a general agreement that interested Best Bits members could form a working group to promote a series of proposed criteria to differentiate between multi-stakeholder processes that are inclusive and democratic, from those that are not.
3. WSIS+10 update This session explained the importance of the WSIS+10 process, as the highest level process in which Interent governance principles are being expressed.  There was some discussion about the level of ambition in the output document, and the means by which civil society can still participate. Interested participants were invited to a longer session that was to be held on the following day as an IGF pre-event.
4. Overview of active global venues discussing Internet public policy issues Following an introductory overview with a mapping of Internet governance institutions, a series of informative presentations were given that zoomed in on a number of these key institutions.  These included Internet native institutions such as ICANN, IETF and ISOC, UN bodies such as the General Assembly, CSTD, Human Rights Council and ITU, other intergovernmental bodies such as the Freedom Online Coalition and London Process, and specialised bodies such as WIPO, the WTO and trade negotiations such as TTP, TTIP and TISA.
5. Catalyzing reform of trade negotiation processes The next session which followed on from these presentations, although cut short for lack of time, was to have been an exercise that would utilize our shared knowledge about various institutions in the Internet governance regime to identify possible strategies for reclaiming Internet-related policy issues from the closed, secretive trade agreements in which those issues have recently been being decided. This exercise will be continued online.
6. Best Bits way forward The results of a survey of Best Bits participants was presented and discussed.  There was a clear consensus that Best Bits did continue to have value, although it was identified that having a large steering committee had not been helpful and was not presently sustainable.  There was agreement to have a smaller group of volunteer coordinators that could be more action-oriented.  One of its main responsibilities would be to organise the annual meeting based on 2-3 targets per meeting, perhaps decided by vote of participants. The existing steering committee was asked to take responsibility for proposing a suitable group of volunteer coordinators going forward.

[spiderpowa-pdf src=”http://bestbits.net/wp-uploads/2015/06/Best-Bits-2014-steering-committee-report-v2.pdf”]Best Bits 2014 steering committee report

[spiderpowa-pdf src=”http://bestbits.net/wp-uploads/2014/09/2014BestBitsMeetingReport.pdf”]2014 Best Bits Meeting Report

[spiderpowa-pdf src=”http://bestbits.net/wp-uploads/2014/08/2013-report.pdf”]Best Bits 2013 report

Basic principle of participation

Klaus: Can’t go on behaving as if everyone has access to the Internet when they don’t 99% don’t know internet governance exists, need capacity building

Basic principles

1. Without outreach, awareness and capacity building to all potential internet users, no legitimate Internet governance can exist.
2. In order for data protection to become real, and an open internet maintained, enforcement of data protection rights must take place especially at the platform level, particularly in new wireless services. Surveillance must be stopped where it starts, and anonymity and encryption protected as a prerequisite for privacy and freedom of expression.
3. Current wording to support the rights of people with disabilities is good, do not weaken.
4. Roles and responsibilities of states, corporations, and individuals are different. In order for the rights of the people to be enforced equally in a global information society, much work needs to be done to raise stakeholder responsibility for respecting basic rights. We support Council of Europe’s Guide to Human Rights for Internet users.

Panelists

• Moderator: Jeremy Malcolm

• Keith Davidson, International Director, Internet NZ
• Byoungil Oh, an activist of Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet
• Shahzad Ahmad, Country Coordinator, Bytes for All, Pakistan
• YJ Park, Professor, SUNY Korea
• Jeremy Malcolm, Senior Policy Officer, Consumers International
• Asif Kabani, Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan

A brief summary of presentations (If any)

Jeremy Malcolm spoke about how quickly the Internet communities have gone from rallying behind the banner of Internet freedom last year at WCIT, to the position where it has been said “the Internet as we know it is dead”. This reflects, he said, a new awareness of how overconfident many of us were in the ability of the existing Internet governance regime, at national or global levels, to channel public interest concerns expressed by Internet user communities into policy processes. Unfortunately the international human rights framework does not have the machinery to prevent the infringement of rights ex ante. The only way to do that is to have civil society human rights defenders participating in the development of policies that will affect Internet users worldwide.  To this end, a civil society coalition has developed recommendations for the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation which can be found at http://bestbits.net/ec.

Keith Davidson spoke next, noting that although there are rights that the Internet places at risk, the Internet also enables us to exercise rights that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise, such as the right to freely express and communicate ideas, which would otherwise be more difficult and costly.  Moreover the rights that are infringed over the Internet aren’t uniquely challenged by the Internet, but would also be challenged using older technologies such as telephony also.  Keith also pointed out that if a Web company is infringing your rights (for example your privacy), you can easily avoid it by choosing a different company.  On the other hand he acknowledged that national laws are being influenced by lobbyists (for example in the area of copyright), so he suggested consumers of the Internet will need to become lobbyists ourselves.  Trying to do so at the global level will be difficult – we already have some global treaties, but it’s clear that those commitments are not always upheld.  Therefore usually our efforts will be focussed at home.  It is difficult to think of any new global mechanisms that would be effective, as this would require them to be enforceable and have broad international commitment.

Byoungil began with the issue of interception of personal conversations by government agencies, which occurs not only in the United States but in Korea.  Interception of foreigners’ communications is especially loosely regulated.  Stronger regulation of interception is needed to protect the rights of individuals, and failure to control this will push each country to strengthen its own ability to intercept communications, in a race to the bottom.  In doing this, there is a need to expand participation of civil society according to the Tunis Agenda.  Despite the enhanced cooperation mandate, new treaties and laws are still being developed behind closed doors.  There is a difficulty in dealing with human rights issues in an Internet governance context is that many of these issues are dealt with in a trade context, or as IP  issues which are reserved to WIPO.  We have to define the most important issues and the right places to discuss those issues, and to ensure that this takes place in a human rights framework.  In Korea, public awareness of multi-stakeholderism is very weak, and it is also challenged around the world.  Although the basic principles were declared at WSIS, many countries opposed the idea.  Most governments don’t clearly understand this and don’t have an agency to handle it.  Consensus needs to be established to apply this concept to their public policies.

Shahzad Ahmad gave some other examples of the infringement of human rights in Internet laws from around the region.  He noted that blasphemy laws are often misused to control Internet usage in Pakistan. Another example in the new ICT Act in Bangladesh, which arose in the context of a blogger accused of false reporting on a political issue, who can now be imprisoned for between 7 and 14 years.  Similarly in Malaysia, there were accusations of interference by ISPs or by the regulator with political expression, during the recent national election.  The overall problems is that such issues at the national level don’t feed into and are not informed by the global policy debates.  For Muslim countries in particular, the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) is not engaging at all with the IGF.  In conclusion whilst the Internet is not dead, it will be a huge effort to keep the Internet as free as it was before.  But these are real issues affecting people on the ground, and these larger issues must be discussed in appropriate venues such as the ITU, IGF and ICANN.

YJ Park spoke about the need to ensure the participation of government people at the IGF.  The organising committee of the current APrIGF have paid particular attention to this, with about five representatives from the government sector present in the workshop room, including Malaysia, the United States and Hungary.  But overall, government participation remains low.  Extending Shahzad’s examples, there have been human rights infringements in Korea also, with allegations of the Korean equivalent ot the CIA (NIA) manipulating the last election.  There has been government regulation of Korea’s version of Google, called Naver, which could influence public opinion on political issues.  Attempts to regulate the private sector have sown distrust amongst stakeholders.  Such distrust is not only an issue for Korea, though.  There is certainly a gap between what happens at the national level, and the best practices discussed at the global level.  In Prof Park’s view, multi-stakeholderism is only implemented well at ICANN, but has yet to be well reflected in other global Internet governance institutions such as the ITU, despite steps towards this at the CSTD.  Can we guarantee that this approach will be taken in other platforms?

Asif Kabani was unable to present due to technical problems, but his presentation slides were made available, and included a reference to the Pakistan government’s blockingof YouTube, and its recent decision to reverse this ban.

A substantive summary and the main issues that were raised

During question time, the first intervention was from Keith Davidson who reacted to YJ Park’s last assertion that ICANN is the only global example of multi-stakeholderism. He stated that the IETF is another good example, and that ICANN, in contrast, has a very narrow mandate.  Milton Mueller, followed by Jeremy Malcolm, reacted in turn to that, stating that the IETF does not have a stakeholder model but a personal representation model, and has acknowledged that is has real problems with inclusiveness.  Prof Mueller criticised ISOC’s usage of the term “the” multi-stakeholder model, as if there were only one such model represented by the processes of the Internet technical community, and which is in contra-distinction to the government model.  Keith rebutted again, stating that although the IETF does welcome individuals, many IETF participants do advocate for organisational opinions there.

Afida, a government representative from Malaysia, responded to a point in Shahzad’s presentation, stating that Malaysia monitored the election to ensure free communication, without overstepping the boundaries of acceptable discourse. In this case, the people didn’t cross the boundaries.  But users in Malaysia are not ready for completely free speech online, due to sensitivities that may cause a national issue. As an example, Internet users of a particular race posted a photograph during Ramadan that was offensive to Muslims, and which led to violence. However in response to a question from Jeremy Malcolm, she agreed that Malaysia can increase its transparency about how content and communications are regulated online.  Shahzad responded by denying that blocking  would promote peace and harmony, and stating that it would inevitably be a political act.

Byoungil said that we Korea is managing ICANN issues well enough, but on other issues there is not enough consultation and policy makers mainly refer to practices in another countries.  EU and UN recommendations at the regional and global level also have influence in Korea.  Sometimes, however, the policies and practices that are adopted from one country into another were not developed in a multi-stakeholder process to begin with, and therefore are deficient in their observance of human rights. An example is the “real name system” in Korea, which requires Internet users to give their real identities to use local online portals or games – this is a poor practice that has since migrated from Korea to China.  As a way of ensuring that such bad practices do not become entrenched, there should be a Korean IGF.

Conclusion & Further Comments

One of the main themes of the session that emerged was that there is a need to make sure that there is a two-way exchange between national policy development processes and global multi-stakeholder fora, as well as replicating multi-stakeholder structures at the national level.  There was also a broad consensus that one of the ways to link the national to the global level would be to encourage and facilitate the participation of local representatives at the global and regional IGFs, as well as to seed the development of national IGFs in countries that do not have them.

BEST BITS SESSION 1
DRAFT NOTES
Multi-Stakeholder Processes: some definitions and principles

Defining Multi-stakeholder: “model”(MSM) “multistakeholder’ism” and/or “processes”

• Multi-stakeholderism is a form of achieving participatory democratic Internet governance, and does not conflict with it.
• It is an iterative process that is transparent and documents consensus and dissensions, and
• Multi-stakeholder”ism” is not appropriate as it elevates this concept to an ideology.
• The term is difficult and conceptually complex and hard to translate and as part of broadening participation, civil society has a responsibility to simplify/explain the language including easy availability of information to all stakeholders
• There are not fixed stakeholders: it is a fluid notion

Principles:

• Participation

MSM should lead to real participation taking into account that there is no decision making outcomes. There is a need to move from consultation to policy development.

There is a right of all individuals and entities to participate in governance processes on issues they have a stake in. However, consultation is not enough: openness and transparency is needed throughout the process,

As civil society we need to be open to ensure participation and ensure that we have capacity building sessions

MS participation should strive towards as broad participation as possible (this means not just allowing participation, but enabling it through resources etc.)

Participation should mean a meaningful voice in any decision-making (with a broad understanding of what constitutes decision-making, i.e. to include agenda-setting etc.)

MS participation requires concrete processes – rules of engagement which are clear and known by all; and a high degree of transparency, for example, policy choices made should be explained and justified, also from public interest viewpoint

MS participation must involve different stakeholder groups – all participants have legitimacy and accountability responsibilities to the process, and to the stakeholders that they represent or come from.

• Accountability and Transparency

As civil society we should ensure accountability and transparency of all parties involved

As stakeholders we need common understanding of concepts/ shared meaning

-Transparency of processes, information used in decision-making

-Responsibility of participants in MS processes, to be informed and necessary skills and respect diverse viewpoints

• Changing power imbalances

Avoid power blocks that prevent discussion of some issues. Ensure a level playing field for civil society.

• Procedural Fairness

Modalities of the process must be announced publicly well in advance

• Diversity

Diversity of inputs taken into consideration ensuring full deliberation

Diversity of viewpoints and interests represented including women

Important to look at barriers to participation; civil society should get its own house in order in this regard before insisting on this principle more broadly

From the Best Bits list “multi-stakeholderism”implies or requires:

• agreement of all participantsto work to collective goal or common purpose
• openness and inclusiveness in seeking input/views from all interested parties
• documents and materials made freely available on line to all parties
• clear, equitable processes for developing outcomes which provide considereation of all inputs/views
• respect for all participants involved

The recent African IGF pre-event statement was also offered as a reference.

Discussion on the future of the IGF and IGF principles

On the IGF context now:

1) Main benefit we personally get from participating in the IGF is meeting new interesting people; as the IGF is evolved we’d rather experience more of this, certainly not less, especially for those new to internet governance

2) IGF as a discussion forum is more sustainable than as a decision- or even recommendation-making body; discussion, understanding other viewpoints is more useful than achieving consensus

Future IGFs

1. We need to recognise the relationship of national IGFs/ Regional IGFs with the global IGF. Global IGF feeding national/ regional IGFs and vice versa.

2. We should work on a set of indicators of issues; stakeholder mapping. Who is involved? What are the issues?

3. The Global IGF while not a decision making body can make reccommendations and/ statements and key strategic issue is: should we focus all our energy on making the IGF as perfect as it should be despite it being a space that doesn’t make decisions – or shall we use more of our energy to engage with forums where decisions are made.

Recommendations from groups

• Consider to transform MS principles into concrete criteria to rank the “level” of openness for multistakeholder participation in each process/forum and to issue some kind of Best Bits assessments on these.
• Followups needed documenting how much each group influenced outcome to help in forming strategic and coordinated approach among civil society efforts. more realistic understanding of where/how to engage and to concentrate efforts?
• Indicate ways for improving existing institutions and processes
• Help articulate what we want from new processes, like the Brazil 2014 meeting
• Evaluate how effectively the recommendations of the WG on IGF Improvements are implemented (including in regard to dynamic coalitions). CS should be more coordinated and strategic in this area.
• Explore the idea that before Internet governance decision making, maybe it should be required to have an IGF process first
• IGF should try to agree on principles, not on too detailed thing like legal frameworks
• IGF should have some means of assessing progress of multistakeholder processes on various levels, online scorecard or something, reporting back

This report is based on the original version of the pad at http://igcaucus.org:9001/p/bb-ms, which may have changed since then.