The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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> If you are a Moderator or Panelist, before the session begins, please pick up the microphone and spell your name for the remote captioner and give your affiliation.
>> AVRI DORIA: You can go to the schedule and the Agenda and go to the website and pull up the paper, if you like, and review that for a couple of minutes. To those participating online, we will start in one or two minutes. Please bear with us. Thank you.
Okay, good morning. We'll start. I'm sure people will keep drifting in. I'm Avri Doria. I have tips for IGF moderators here that says, I'm to spell my name. So my name is AVRI Doria. And so, we have got basically until 10:30. The meeting is, we have been working on the Best Practice Forum for multistakeholder ‑‑ what is our proper name? I don't remember our proper name. Multistakeholder participation models ‑‑ mechanisms. And we have been working on that for the last two years. During the first year, we basically talked mostly theoretically about what is multistakeholder model, what are they? How do they work? The second year we have been trying to be more practical looking at specific cases, getting best cases from people.
So, we have worked on a document across this year and now have a document that we are basically proposing as something that could possibly become an output from the IGF that could serve as an input as a discussion item for other groups in other places. It certainly does not pretend to be the be‑all and end‑all of the complete expression of multistakeholder models and multistakeholder participation, but attempts to discuss some of the issues.
So, for today, we have an Agenda and the Agenda starts with reviewing and revising the Agenda, which is the part we are going to do now.
The first substantive issue was to discuss some of the notable issues that we have or have had, during the work on the paper over the last year. Those issues have been the nature of consensus in multistakeholder organizations and decision‑making. The batted actor problem, the relationship of multistakeholder models to democracy, best practices and examples of multistakeholder mechanisms submitted to the process, and then other issues. Any interactive discussion. As I say, we have 90 minutes of which 5 have already been used.
Then the disposition of the document is the next thing, basically is there enough support in this room and elsewhere to sort of push this forward, first to the intercessional meeting that we have? I guess that one is tomorrow, where all the Best Practice Forums will sort of report on their status. So, I'm listed report during that meeting of where we are at and I would certainly like to know from you all what I will be reporting. Other than the kind of general conversation they come up with myself. But, basically, the disposition of the document is something I'd like to start together. And then, what do we do with this for more work? Do we take a break? Do we let it continue in other workshops and stuff, but pull back on the best practice work for a while, et cetera. So, we'll be looking for comments and suggestions on what to do there.
And then, you know, are there any other issues? Future of multistakeholder work in that? I don't want to spend too much time. Does anyone have any issues or objections to this Agenda? Changes that should be made to it? I see no one asking for the floor, so we'll go with this Agenda.
Having done that, I sort of already did the first part, but I'll do a little bit more. The brief update on the status. Perhaps actually I would ask Brian, who has been the one to work on the document, to give ‑‑ I should also mention up here with me there is Brian, who is the Secretary Person, who has been doing the massive amount of the work in the background on the document, on making sure I scheduled meetings, on making sure I came to meetings, and so on and so forth.
And we also have Cheryl, who has become my co‑coordinator on this group in the last several months and I wanted to welcome her up here and ask her to sort of interject any time I'm babbling incoherently.
>> CHERYL LANGDON: Thank you very much. I just wanted to say that I know I'm a late addition but I'm very happy to be here and be a part of it. So thank you.
>> BRIAN CUTE: Hi, everyone. Quick show of hands. Who is the first time as being part of this Best Practice Forum? Fantastic!
>> AVRI DORIA: Of the people with hands up, many of you have been on the calls? Okay. But I saw Michael's hand and Michael have definitely been on the calls.
>> BRIAN CUTE: Where are we in the document? As Avri said, this process started last year and produced a first version of an output document that was presented in Istanbul. That was September of 2014. After that, the MAG, based on consultations with the community, took a decision to continue the work in 2015. I think that decision was made sometime in December. The work continued via virtual meetings and using our mailing list, dedicated mailing list, and the document evolved. The first iteration of 2015 built upon the 2014 work.
We then made a wide call for contributions where we asked the community to submit their best practices or examples of multistakeholderism at work. And we didn't limit that to a call for inputs on multistakeholderism as it pertains to Internet Governance, but rather to any field. And we received a fair amount of good contributions, and they came trickling in throughout the year. Two more versions, I think, were produced based on virtual calls, based on the inputs that we received in writing.
At the bottom of the page ‑‑ if any of you ‑‑ I know not all of you have laptops or iPads. But you can go to the IGF website and pull up the paper. If you go to the homepage and go to the Best Practice Forum site you can pull up the document and see where it is as of now. It's about 15 pages. There is a bit of an executive summary at the beginning and it gets into the meat of the discussions. And the paper really is sort of a patchwork of the comments received of the examples we received. And there is a bit of narrative, but it is really a lot of text that we got from the community, their examples, and then at the bottom of the paper, there is a collection of links to useful resources, case studies, academic papers, on the subject.
So, we hope it will be a living resource, whatever happens with it next. And throughout the calls and the year, we got into a lot of interesting discussions on terms that might be familiar to those that participated Internet governs processes or IGF regulars, such as consensus or rough consensus, democracy, Democratic processes, et cetera, and we had some really interesting discussions that I think we'd like to continue today and also hear from those that haven't been involved, what their views are on these things to then we hope update the document a bit after this meeting and present it again to the group.
Anybody who has been involved? Has any comments about their experience over the last two years or one year, we'd like to hear about that too. And I will try and pull the paper up on the screen, as well.
>> AVRI DORIA: Any comments on that.
I put up a microphone there so people can go up to the microphone. I think that is the easiest as opposed to trying to pass the microphone around the room. So if you do come up to the microphone, please state your name. And I don't think you have to spell it but if you have a difficult name, you may want to just to make sure it shows up correctly in the transcript.
>> BRIAN CUTE: Those participating online, we have Remote Moderator in the back. Please just feel free to jump in, those participating remotely and give me a wave if anybody wants to intervene. Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: And I'll try to ask if there are any remote. So, any comments or questions on that first bit on the history of the paper, the history of the work and such? If not, moving on to the first topic. Now, we basically have four main topics and such. So, I'd like to start by just giving like 10 minutes each to each topic and sigh where we end up so we get a chance to touch everything. Obviously, if there is more than 10 minutes worth of comments in a topic, we have got an issue that perhaps we'll need to do some deeper work on.
Another thing I'd like to point out that in addition to the PDF of the paper, there is also still a comment paragraph by paragraph paper on the IGF website. In fact, that is what I'll refer to now.
So, on the consensus issue, one of the issues we had was, in this paper, whey started talking about rough consensus and people had objected to rough consensus being used because that was, as one group said, a term of art in the IATF with a specific definition of how an ‑‑ and a specific mechanism with appeals and everything of how rough consensus was obtained.
So, we basically dropped back and said, let's just speak about consensus, but then there was an issue of what exactly does consensus mean? How do we determine? Do we determine it in the U.N. context of, as long as there is no strong opposition then you have consensus?
In the rough consensus process, there is more of a notion that you can have some disagreement, but if you have disagreement that has to be understood. It has to be well discussed and there has to be the ability that after making sure that everyone understands the dissenting opinion, if the majority of the overwhelming majority of the group still does not support it, then there is the ability to add a dissenting comment to the document.
So, there is also throughout this work, a notion that there really isn't one definition that will work for all multistakeholder mechanisms. We have seen in various of the Dynamic Coalitions, when they have reached consensus, they first talked about it, they chartered and said if no more than 5% of those participating had a ‑‑ then we could call it consensus.
In some sense, we find that if a group can agree to a definition of consensus, that they are willing to live with, then that may be good enough as long as it is well‑defined and well‑understood and accepted. In fact, as you start going through organizations, as you look through some of the best practice listings that people made, you find there are variations.
There is still a notion that it is not necessarily consensus doesn't necessarily mean full consensus, but it means overwhelming agreement.
So, I'd like to open that up and ask people that have a view on that, that want to comment further, that want to comment on the words that are in the document, disagreements, nuances, what have you, to come up to the microphone and sort of make yourself heard. Now ,it might be frightening to be the first one, but hopefully there is someone that will come up first. Some of you have come up to the microphone many times. Some of you have spoken on the phone calls many times. So, I'm hoping someone will break the ice and not leave me here sort of going on and on.
>> BRIAN CUTE: You can ask for the microphone to come to your seat. We will allow that. We encourage people to come up to the microphone. Really, views about consensus, what does it mean to you? We know ‑‑ I don't know who is an expert, a real expert in multistakeholder participation mechanisms. This is why we need to hear your views. What have your experiences been working in multistakeholder participation settings? Has consensus, that term, been an issue for you for some reason? Here is our first volunteer. Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello? Okay. Thank you very much, Avri. I enjoyed participating in your teleconferences on this subject.
>> AVRI DORIA: Please give your name.
>> BARBARA WANNER: I'm sorry. I'm Barbara Wanner with the U.S. Council for International Business. I feel very happy with what you developed here in terms of enabling each group to decide on how they want to define consensus, because I know even in my own organization, we are reluctant to get into percentages and quantitative measurements. We feel that it has to be really sort of a spirit of overwhelming agreement, as you say there.
So, I think that if we can suggest that consensus is something that is thoroughly discussed within each multistakeholder body and that if there is, as you say, a well defined and well‑understood definition of what consensus means for that group, I think that is important and a positive way to proceed.
>> AVRI DORIA: I have one question I'd like to ask perhaps you and others. Let's say a group has determined at the beginning, what their consensus methodology is, what they are going to use; then there is new participants come in later and sort of find that notion uncomfortable or something that is difficult for them. Some something that perhaps should be reviewed periodically, that deciding a time zero, is that sufficient for all‑time? Or should ‑‑ and this is just something I started to worry about recently talking to some of the Dynamic Coalitions and seeing some of the issues that occurred when several years ago they decided what consensus was, but now there is new people. Do you have a ‑‑
>> BARBARA WANNER: I think we recently had an exercise in which we very generally touched on this issue with consensus. And, I think there was a sense that ‑‑ my particular institution had embraced a particular approach to consensus for many years. So, a newcomer coming in, this is the way we are doing it. We encourage their participation in the discussion and their participation in the consensus‑building process, but I think we feel that it is important for us to sort of have this baseline fundamental understanding, this is what it is in our organization. But, we invite your participation in the process, in the decision‑making process.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Thank you for letting me ask you a question. Thank you. Would anyone else like to comment on the issue of consensus and what we mean by it and the way we describe it before we move on to our next topic? You want someone to bring you the microphone; because I can do that too. And, please remember to give your name.
>> LORI SHULMAN: My name is Lori Shulman and I'm from the International trademark association. And, I have been in and out of the multistakeholder process for about a dozen years, different points in my life, in my career, different hats too, non‑profit, commercial, all over the place. But a couple of thoughts strike me and I don't know how valid they are and what other people think of them. But in terms of consensus, what I sometimes get concerned about, particularly those who are representing positions or institutions that may not have a lot of support within a particular environment when consensus sometimes, to me, feels like peer pressure. That consensus, instead of a voting mechanism when you talk about consensus in some of the forum I have been in, it's more about affirmation where generally loud voices are saying yes! And I wonder sometimes if it doesn't stifle certain opinions on either side of the issue. That is one thing.
I think second, talking about when you have fluid mechanisms, when you have people roaming in and out, like myself in varies points of my career, coming in and coming out, if you do these sort of midterm checks in a project, does that in a way, unravel the work you have done? Is that a risk that is worth taking? Or, is it a risk that should be taken because it is fluid? To me, that's the essential question on that issue.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Normally when I have been part of groups doing that review, you only start to unravel if someone has brought in new cases, new substantive material and new opinions that haven't been heard before. Did you want to add anything before I move on?
>> CHERYL MILLER: Just really quickly, the work that has been done ‑‑ Cheryl Miller with Verizon. I agree with Barbara. I think the work that has been done on the paper has been great and in particular, I think it is really important, the language regarding dissenting opinions and how you catalog that or come to understand that rather than ignoring that and being more inclusive and including that in the process is quite important.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I have noticed you push the button on these and there is a little bit of a pause. So, for anyone monitoring ‑‑ moderating something in the future, know that about the buttons.
So, okay, so I guess we'll cut the discussion on consensus at that point and move to the next topic.
>> BRIAN CUTE: There is the delay. And anybody participating online, again, I want to check in. Okay. Not yet. And just for background on the paper, we were discussing consensus and that discussion led to you bringing up another part of the paper. So, actually, all the issues are very interlinked about consensus and then participation mechanisms, how most of the time people don't feel comfortable in the room or some people feel like outsiders. There is a lot of obstacles to participate on equal footing and that is discussed later in the paper. So, again, encouraging everybody who is new to this process to go through the paper, not now. This afternoon on your way home, and take a look and comment and join our group.
>> AVRI DORIA: As Brian said, after this meeting, we'll take the content from this discussion. We'll take any new comments that have come in over the next what? Couple of weeks, I guess, and then we'll basically put a bow on the document at least for now.
So, moving on, if there is no last comments on consensus, and I have already gone longer than I said I would on this one.
To the bad actors issue. I don't know if there is anyone in this group that has not been in a Working Group and a forum and a focus group, that at some point hasn't come up against the bad actor issue. Either because someone was accused justly or unjustly of being such a bad actor, or that there was actual disruption that may or may not have been termed bad actor. So, it was brought up certainly in several of the reports. Basically, people were concerned about it because people have seen groups that have been derailed. One of the first things we came up with is, how to define the notion of bad actor? It certainly can't be someone who disagrees with the group strongly and participates in a group's processes, participates respectfully, but fundamentally disagrees and cannot accept.
So, that seemed like it was the wrong definition, and no one was trying to put on that definition. So, we came up with a list of attributes that may or may not ‑‑ certainly wouldn't need to all apply but for giving indications.
A participant who is abusing the process to delay and deform the substance. A participant making veiled threats. A participant making unsolicited conflicts of interest, including contingent fees et cetera. A participant engaged in astro-turfing. Astro-turfing being an Americanism, means you get everybody you know in your organization to send a form letter, essentially, saying that ‑‑ and you basically deluge the process with thousands of statements that are just basically formed letter statements. J
ust to explain astro-turfing. All of a sudden I got that and we said, that's an Americanism. A participant that is inflating their value individually. An individual who says anti‑organization of 10,000 organizations. Someone who does not enable or engage in fact, base and reason, respectful of disagreement.
That sometimes is termed the fear uncertainty and doubt issue, commonly referred to as FUD. That's its acronym. Most people don't know that FUD stands for fear, uncertainty and doubt. Someone who engaging in attacking and disparaging comments, attacks individuals or organizations and states with hostile and disparaging remarks and seeks to disrupt the civil discourse. People who make remarks that are detrimental to active participation of some other people and/or to reaching a consensus in multistakeholder discussions. People who participate in a process with the affect of stifling the process. Peep who persist in arguing a position after it has been discussed in detail and found not to be part of the consensus but use that position to block the continuing work of the rest of the group.
And, that is different than the condition I posed at the beginning of strongly disagreeing and continuing to argue your disagreement until you're sure it is understood. People persistent bringing up out‑of‑scope issues that act as road blocks. People's who primary form of argument is personal attack, intimidation and bullying. On reading that description, it seems fairly good to me, it seems fairly expansive, yet I can look at that and basically realize that there are times even in my own personal participation and groups where I have at least come close some of those if I haven't actually crossed the border. I'm sure that in some groups, I have been a member of, there would be people that would heartily claim that I had crossed some of those borders.
And, I don't know if other than those of you who remain silent and say little, whether ‑‑ so I think that these are not just one instance of one thing, because we can all make a mistake. But, it becomes a pattern of behavior. So, you know, one of the things that was brought up is sort of being careful about accusing people of being bad actors. There is really nothing that will create a bad actor as much as a non‑bad actor being accused of being one. So, the other part ‑‑ thank you. I'll get you the microphone. Just going through the points in the document still.
Part of it is judging the in tens tensions. A lot of these have a notion of intentionality in them. Does the person intend to disrupt or are they just really, really stubborn and don't think you have understood them? Are they frustrated? And expressing frustration but there is no bad intentionality? So it is being careful when one is looking at these things to not ascribe intentionality where there may be frustration, where there may just be a misunderstanding.
So, that was it. So please introduce yourself.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indiscernible)
-- partnership foundation. Maybe what strikes me is all of these attributes 0that we all use one or the other in a Working Group. It happens. Why do we have to say these are the signs? Why can't we say, indicators? We might look at these as indicators for bad acting. The second thing is, quite simply, there is also what strikes me and it becomes more and more common, and I'm sorry that I'm talking about this, sometimes people are not each in the group, there are even groups behind groups which sabotaging a process and Working Group just by simply by rumor mongering, by all kinds of things. Instead of saying, for example, "People," we should also use it --
(Loss of audio due to intermittent internet connection)
>> AVRI DORIA: ‑‑ influences may disrupt the group but I never thought of that in the notion of that being a form of bad actor. So, I think a couple of lines that indicate another way of being a bad actor is to not participate at all, but just interfere from outside. So, thank you for that one.
Any other comments on the bad actor issue? Things that are missing? Things that are wrong? I guess people prefer the microphone in place. So, we have someone bringing the microphone to people. Please remember to state your name.
>>MARK SWARBRICK: Mark, United Kingdom government, Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Thank you very much. First time to take the mic here for this paper. It's a very comprehensive and very good start to the work. On this particular issue, I have never seen a catalog of misbehaviors set out so clearly like this. So it is actually quite informative. It serves to remind one of bitter occasions in the past at meetings where individuals have resorted to approaches to a process to a meet coming can be disruptive and delayed.
So, it certainly ‑‑ you do think back to occasions when instances of these various forms of behavior have manifested themselves and how do we deal with those issues? And that was the point I was going to make. Perhaps drawing on this catalog of experience and examples of poor or bad or disruptive conduct, one would think about how to pre‑empt that kind of behavior through, for example, the leadership of a process, a forum, a mechanism of some sort, perhaps related through a kind of charter, initiation, sets out a Code of Behaviors that then you would have some way of enforcing control over a process, which is being rendered vulnerable by bad actors resorting to any of these particular courses of behavior. So that maybe as a next step for this particular issue and how this Best Practice Forum could build on what is being correlated here, is something to consider.
Are there instances of codes which have been implemented which then empower the group or the process, the leadership, to take action to put a stop to any behavior that is likely to be disruptive and delayed?
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And actually, it seems quite a good thing to add a sentence or two to this at the moment that there do exists. There are many charters and such that do include just having a list of things already warns people but I think to add a sentence or two to help prevent these things by being aware of them and by putting some description of them in charters and how to deal with them. So thank you. I see a hand right besides you and then one a row or two ahead. So please, remember to give your name.
>> SUZANNE MORGAN: Suzanne Morgan, Activity Director of Multistakeholder Initiative and Global Networking. I wanted to echo what mark said. If I think about my own experience running GNI, there were certain points within the process it was incredibly important to have exactly what mark talked about, in terms of having a code that people would sign up to so that if we were in a particularly tricky part of the negotiations we had something to go back to say, this is ‑‑ these are the steps and these are the things we agreed to do. So I think it will be a great addition.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And then Barbara and then there is also one in the back there.
>> BARBARA WANNER: This is Barbara Wanner again with the US Council for International Business and I just echo my support for Mr. Caravel's remarks because I think this issue of codes of conduct or standards of behavior, sort of fits hand and glove with your consensus‑building process. In fact, that is how my organization has approached this as well. So, again, I endorse this idea of introducing the idea of standards, codes of conduct.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And then in the back, please.
>> MARY LYNN NIELSEN: My name is Mary Lynn Nielsen with the IEEE specifically with their standards association. And one concept, I haven't fully studied the paper so I may speak out of ignorance here, is an obligation to the majority. And fully respecting everything that is said, you need to listen to your minority and you need to have a tool to recognize someone who is being a bad actor, having a Code of Conduct is a value and can help in the guidance but that you also have an obligation when you do see a majority coalescing and agreeing, to move forward with that. Still respecting it. So to capture that concept of an obligation to the majority, may serve as a great benefit. We use it in a standardization process.
>> AVRI DORIA: We do have a paragraph that basically talks about respect to the process, respect to the other participation. Then we got into the word, "Of majority" when we are dealing with this consensus argument but yes, that notion of respecting the others in the room. It is really fantastic to see IEEE participate. I have been a member since ‑‑ since late 70s.
In the back there was another comment.
>> RAVI: Thank you. This is Ravi speaking. What I hear about I understand that people want to create framework, make it more easy for people to participate and to express themselves. But also I'm afraid it is how it can be ‑‑ what can be there and how it can be also used sometimes to ‑‑ I mean, I would add the aspect of that part so how you can interpret some abuse depending on the culture. Because coming from north Africa maybe, I have sometimes hard time to understand how maybe north European, they can speak or intervene or something like that. So how you can make it ‑‑ can include the diversity part and conduct Code of Conduct and how to avoid that it becomes also tools to prevent people from speaking and so on. So, how you can create a balance here.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, please.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Really good comment. And just piggybacking on that comment, just making sure that you're inclusive of newcomers and making sure that newcomers to a certain process understand and advance some of the ways that a certain group works or a certain group has come together, because you want to be as inclusive as possible and not exclude people that may be coming in after a process has continued but they may still have a difference of opinion or have other substances they want to be able to add and feel as though that their opinions and thoughts have been heard.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. In fact, this is Avri again. One of the things that I have noticed is particularly difficult in groups. And, this is groups that I have chaired. For example, if a group has spent six months arguing an issue and you finally resolved it and then a new com are come in and doesn't know it has been argued to death already, now often we try to start to say, read up on everything the group has done before you open your mouth, but then some people may never be able to open their mouth.
It is finding polite and respectful ways to take people back through the arguments, but also to be careful that you don't say, we have discussed all that and the it's been covered, because they very well may have a different perspective that is one that you actually hasn't discussed, and then how do you bring a group to sort of re‑open something? It is not a problem but is it one that if you're going to groups being open, and groups that are ongoing, taking new people, you do have to find a mechanism, both to keep from repeating the arguments that you had, but also to make sure that decisions were made in the past are still open to the new perspective, to the new fact, to the fact that very often in groups that work together for a long time, we do get into a hive mind or a bubble as others express. And, it becomes difficult for us to see the perspective that isn't the group. Thank you. Anymore comments? Any external comments? Any remote? We are not supposed to be using the word, remote. Any online comments? I know we still call it remote. But within the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, we try to lessen the notion of remote. There are participants in the room. There are participants on the line. There is no audience, and I see a hand in the back.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. Bernard from the Thailand ‑‑ regarding newcomers, that you mentioned about, even in discussions might be to have newcomer to engage discussion again might be to bring back under the old area again. Would it be possible that regarding the documentation that you might be put into these kinds of sensitive issue has been discussed already and put into the same place? While newcomers they just walk through in this kind of document, it might be to think about a different approach and the different perspective.
I think most of the newcomer would like to be a part of it and try to share thought and ideas. This might be easy for them to be a part of them but when they look at this kind of issues has been discussed already.
The second one might be ‑‑ for the leaders of the group discussions, to make them, to feel comfortable, to share something rather than to say, my God, this already has been discussed already, this issue. So, they don't want to be a part of the discussions. Those things might be to be a part of newcomer.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, the notion of having documentation that describes where you have been is very good. Sometimes it's very difficult. And one of the things that happens in some groups, we say, read all the documents that exist. Read the old mailing list. Listen to the recordings of calls. But that can be an immense amount of work and that can stifle contribution for a very long time. On the other hand, producing documents that describe it all takes someone to be able to do that work clearly. But, very good.
And, in terms of those that are leading the group, if I understood correctly, to basically be able to talk with the person, to work with the person, to explain and to be the ones to understand, oh, my word, there is a new perspective there. So, yes. Thank you.
And I saw ‑‑
>> KIMBERLY ANASTACIO: Kimberly Anastácio from University of Brasilia, Brazil. I like to highlight we have to have in mind the diversity of stakeholder groups because sometimes in our stakeholder group, bringing one that has already been discussed is not a problem at all.
For example, in the Brazil steering committee, my field of study, one point that is always on debate is the openness of the meetings and every time new elections, it is almost certain a Civil Society member, we will come back with the discussion rather the meetings should be open or remain closed.
So, this is, I think, we should not have in mind this is a bad conduct, but a strategy of group that might have less power or be weaker than other groups. So, just to highlight that sometimes and depending on the process and regiment and things like that in a multistakeholder group, bringing new discussions and older discussions is not a problem. But, a strategy of a certain stakeholder group.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. It is very interesting the bad actor notion has actually started opening up towards perhaps some of the significance of participatory democracy in itself of making sure that there is inclusion, that there isn't exclusion and such, and so just wanted to bring it back quickly to the making sure we don't therefore, misinterpret behaviors as bad when they may be indeed, something else and something that is quite valuable and important.
Any comments on that before I move on to the next one? We have 40 minutes left on this session. Anyone? Okay. Then perhaps we have taken a couple of notes on those issues to add. Did you have anything before we close? Okay.
So, moving on to the notion of democracy. One of the comments that came up was, you don't mention democracy. This is on an older version, democracy is now mentioned. On one of the older versions, you really don't discuss democracy in this as part of the multistakeholder process. Now, we did in the definition talk about multistakeholder processes being a form of participatory democracy where you find it includes groups that have either picked representatives or picked participants using a more traditional representational democracy. Certainly if you're including governments in your multistakeholder process, some may be even many, hopefully some day, all of them will have been picked by some form of representational democracy or what have you.
Also, noting that the definition of democracy varies all over the place. If we start to catalog the number of things that are called Democratic, we may not even agree that they are all in deed, Democratic. So, what we have tried to do is certainly reinforce that and also added a specific paragraph on democracy, because also when we started discussing democracy, we noticed that there might be contention within the group of, what did you mean and how were you using that context ‑‑ that word?
Let me see if I can find the paragraph. I'll tread from there. And let me just point ‑‑ one of the issues discussed was the need for it to be Democratic.
The definition includes it and I already covered that. One of the issues that came up in discussions of democracy was the definition being used. For some democracy means one country, one vote, notion of democracy used in intergovernmental agencies. And for them, when you're talking about an International multistakeholder, multilateral governance, that has to be a predominant notion.
But for others, this was inappropriate in situations where Governments were one of the stakeholders but not necessarily the dominant stakeholder. For some, democracy meant each stakeholder participating on an equal footing in the multistakeholder process. Yet this view encountered problems when discussing circumstances where all stakeholders had an equal voice but only one stakeholder was accountable for making a decision.
The issues on the formation of democracy used with stakeholder groups with each stakeholder group finding its own way towards participation in a bottom‑up manner. And, if you look at that development of Democratic notions in groups, you find that there is really a lot of variety that basically sometimes is culturally dependent sometimes it is situation alley dependent, and et cetera. But ,people develop different systems that seem to deliver a Democratic result.
It is clear that the multistakeholder model and the forms of democracy that can be expressed from representational democracy to direct the democracy and in 14, vary with the issue under discussion and the locus of accountability for decisions and consequences.
One of the issues that we talk about rarely in the multistakeholder processes, when we are trying to actually make decisions with them, is rarely does the whole multistakeholder group have the ultimate accountability for the decision. Usually, there is a government, there is a board, if it is a technical decision, there is an engineering group, there is a developing group. There is some group that at the end of the day, is responsible for the law, the policy, the piece of code being built. The architecture that has been created.
So, how do you persist in being multistakeholder while acknowledging that? And how do you persist in having a Democratic process while the decision may actually only belong to one of the stakeholders at that last moment in terms of the last moments accountability? So, I don't know if you want to add anything to that before we open it up?
>> CHERYL LANGDON: Let's just open it up.
>> AVRI DORIA: So, would anyone like to take the notion on this sort of thorny but central issue of democracy and the multistakeholder mechanisms? Multistakeholder processes. It was adequately described? Is the balance there adequately described in the document? Or is there something missing? Is there some nuance that we can add? Nobody going to stop me from babbling on? Thank you.
>> SONIGITU EKPE: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Sonigitu Ekpe from Nigeria. I think I have comment on the document when the Democratic aspect, one dominant person happens to take the decision at the end of the day. In democracy, if it is a collection, then all stakeholders have to take this same decision. Multistakeholder approach we are looking at, what are those platform each stakeholder is supposed to treat for an equal footing? That is my question.
>> AVRI DORIA: So, and in fact, in many platforms, it is hard to find that equal footing. Certainly, you know, and it is a different stages. One of the things that people looked at is at different stages and different processes. Sometimes there is equal footing. Sometimes there is not. At the consultation and discussion stage, equal footing is easier to find. You can open it up. You can have a table where all stakeholders sit as equals and take the microphone as equals.
So at that point you have equal footing. But exactly, at the end of the day, when it is some group, some entity is actually accountable for that decision, be it a government, be it a board, be it an architecture board, how does that translate ‑‑
(Lost audio feed due to intermittent Internet connectivity.)
it really does become situational and one of the things that within the multistakeholder process ‑‑ I believe, and it's my personal belief, is that the multistakeholder bottom‑up group ‑‑ equal footing and those that have the leadership position. Any other comments? I understand you have a follow‑up?
>> SONIGITU EKPE: If the final stakeholder is supposed to take the decision unaccountable and the decision is not in favor of the rest of the stakeholders, what happens?
>> AVRI DORIA: That really depends. In some groups like the work that is being done in ICANN at the moment, we are trying to come up with a mechanism of kicking them out. You know? In a representational democracy, you vote them out. In an architectural situation, you find a Newark effect. Now, when it is a entrenched bureaucracy, I have no idea.
So, finding the problem of how you redress this becomes another problem. When you have a multistakeholder consensus, and you have an authoritative decision‑maker that does not take that into account, how you redress that is a bigger issue than I think we have tried to cover here. Bu,t it's a good topic for further discussion. In some cases, it is easy. You vote the bums out. But, in other cases, it is a lot harder.
>> BRIAN CUTE: We had a comment in the back.
>> NICHOLAS: Thank you. Nicholas. I presented a paper at a session on multistakeholders and democracy and I just wanted to offer some values that I think could be helpful in thinking about how to reconcile the two. So, I heard some of this comments made and they are in the paper already, but so accountability is definitely one of those important issues and as you referred to Avri, there are different stages in the process so, in the stage of Agenda setting, someone can be in charge. It can be a more disbursed control of the process whereas when you come to the final presentation of the draft, eventually, someone will have to take ownership of the process and it is inevitable that the power will be more concentrated. But more generally, I would just like to point out the five values that I indicated in the paper and it will be posted line and I would be happy to send to the group.
The 1st one is deliberation. It is important that we don't have just voting process but the possibility for everyone to argue and engage in discussion. And this is based on Robert Dahl's work on democracy, which identifies two important notions, one is conversation and the other is inclusiveness. So, inclusiveness is the second value. I think if you have a broader open participatory process but you don't try to make an effort to reach out to those that are maybe not aware, then the multistakeholder process is in a way, float. So this perhaps is not reflected in the paper yet.
A third value is participation. So, try to make use of tools to enhance participation of those who are already in the process as much as possible, and I think in that respect, crowd sourcing offers some valuable inputs. And then, legitimacy is also important to be able to justify each step of the process while you are making a decision.
And also, why certain stakeholders are in the process. Or what interests are they bringing to the floor?
And then the fifth principle is already mentioned, accountability, one form of accountability is transparency but it is not always possible to have full transparency in multistakeholder processes. There might be some confidential issue which is cannot be disclosed. So, then the monitoring of the process throughout different phases, having someone in charge and someone else reviewing can be also helpful. So, I'll be happy to send a paper for more.
>> AVRI DORIA: Please do. And we'll add the reference to it. One of the things we are trying to build in the paper is not only the issues that we are discussing and the points were made, but readings that people can go to. So thank you very much. I think in some cases, the discussion of democracy in its full thing may be more than the multistakeholder reference to it, but I find it very helpful and certainly all of those do seem appropriate to the a multistakeholder process.
Any other comments? Okay. I see a hand.
>>SHERLEY HARISTYA: Hi, my name is Sherley from Indonesia. So, I submitted a short writing to this forum, and it is true the democracy could mean many things. So, this is my observation, especially in the global level because there is no such authority. And, in comparison to democracy, we have the governments, right? So the governments, they have their own authority in the country but it is not the case in the global level.
So, because of that, I think one of the appropriate models of democracy in the global level, it is deliberate democracy. Why? Because it emphasizes not only inclusiveness in terms of physical participation, but also inclusiveness in terms of the views being presented at the forum or an institution. So, I would propose it as the baseline to talk about baseline in the global level.
And also my second point is that one multistakeholder initiative to the other, it has different links to the authoritative decision‑makers. So, I would emphasize that for us, to talk about multistakeholder participation in only one particular forum or institution, but how it could be related and linkage to the authoritative space.
So, in short, I would propose that if we are talking about multistakeholder deliberation, we should talk how the authoritative space it could be held responsive and to accommodate the views from the public of the deliberation.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
>> BRIAN CUTE: I wanted to thank you for your paper, actually. It is referred to in the compilation and also the gentleman in the back. We love to have your paper and anybody else here, please submit your papers.
>>AVRI DORIA: And thank you. I heard a couple of days ago, a presentation on your paper and it's quite useful, especially in the context where there is an authority at the apex in circumstances where there is not a participatory model, I think starts to also be part of the discussion. So, I think it is one very good part of the sort of set of concepts that can be applied. I'm not positive that it can be applied in those cases where there is no defined authority, such as a government. But ,I think certainly in terms of using a multistakeholder process in an environment where there is a known and defined authority, it is an excellent way to look at it. Did you have anything?
Anyone else before moving on? I see a hand almost coming up.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Long time involved in the Civil Society area. I have really started a paper. Where is your equal footing idea? I see some element that in a stakeholder group, it could be a very different position to be in, values, especially when it comes to Global Civil Society, for example. Do you assume that each stakeholder group, meaning Civil Society, government, private sector ‑‑ as they are defined, should be one entity versus the other? Or do you mean equal meaning, if there is four stakeholders, they are treated equal? Or if they have three different positions within Civil Society groups and some of them claim something closer to another stakeholder, then how we measure the equality? This might sound like a theoretical thing, but having the Civil Society group, I have to coordinate one single position within the Civil Society global. We may have made some rough ‑‑ kicking out let's say 30% of them and take 70% to position. So, how do you address this.
>> AVRI DORIA: This paper doesn't. Now if you make an assumption that multistakeholder processes and models apply all the way down and all the way up, it would be for each one of those groups. And this gets beyond there being only four. We are in the world of Tunis Agenda stakeholder groups and therefore we tend to assume the 3+2 model. In the rest of the world when you're talking about a multistakeholder process, you don't necessarily have that division.
I think that the notion of, is a group a united front group? Or is the group a discussion group that brings all of its viewpoints into the larger discussion? It is really a discussion for each of those constituent groups that I personally dislike unified front groups, whereas there are other people that think that that is the way things should work.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: If I may follow‑up. May I? I read this in the context of WSIS, am I right.
>> AVRI DORIA: This in the context of multistakeholder processes in general. WSIS certainly one sort of example. But no, this is not written in the context of WSIS is written within the IGF, which is much broader than WSIS and looks at other examples in the world of multistakeholder processes and how they develop and evolve.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Sorry to take more time but I have been working quite a bit for the implementing the multistakeholder process within Japanese Internet Governance specific issues like the oversight of the country domain name. And, we have rounds of discussions and outcomes. The government is still working on implement some portion of the multistakeholder set up, not only in domestic but engaged in International debate. And in that we are trying to find some workable principles and models on the one hand and as every nation, I try to bring some elements from the sustainable development venue of the U.N. outside of IGF and WSIS and there is some different kinds of notions and implementations. So, if you intend this paper as a very generic one, I'd love to see it stated as such. Because within IGF, certain people IGF isn't broader than WSIS as you mentioned. For some people, IGF and the Internet is narrow in the universe.
>> AVRI DORIA: So you have specific edit you want, please go through the comments and tell us what specific edit is needed.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: As well as the global and national, regional or the venue all dictates a different kind of workings of. So I will try to do that. That is my comment.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. So yes, this is a general document. This is not a prescription for anyone.
Anyone else on this? Yes, please.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. Chairman of the Polish Decision Council, and we face the same issues we just discussed. But, one of the things that was noted today and I wonder whether the report mentioned this, the issue of lets say the strength of the voice that is given stakeholder group has. So, even if you have an equal amount of seats, you may have one stakeholder group with a stronger voice, not necessarily government. It depends on the country. So, then the issue is, how do you choose topics? There are subject to multistakeholder dialogue? Do you choose it through a consensus? Is it enough if one stakeholder group decides that one topic is of particular interest and other stakeholder groups focus? Is there any let's say, solutions or formulas that you would suggest?
>> BRIAN CUTE: I won't react to that specifically. We do get into that a bit in the paper. And also remind everybody that last year's paper went through some of the issues in a little bit more depth and I want everybody to refer to that paper as well. It's linked in the opening of 2015 paper, the 2014 paper has a lot of good resources and discussions. Just wanted to get that out there to remind everybody that there are two papers to refer to.
>> CHERYL LANGDON: I wanted to say that is a good point because in many situations, the percentages of participation even can be very different among the different groups. How do you wade through that. It is worth discussing and exploring further.
>> AVRI DORIA: You may find something in the ‑‑ in the other part of the paper and we are only going to point to it very quickly, all the examples that people ‑‑ part of the main project of this year was collecting best and not so best practices that people had experienced. So you may also find some indicators in that. And of course, that issue comes up not only in terms of strength and persistent voices, but you also hear it in terms of power, inequalities and disparities. And some of that comes up in the best cases and some of that may require future best cases to be added to the catalog.
So, we have got 15 minutes left on this session. I don't know if there is anything that we wanted to say about the case that is that were attached. I think we got some really good ones. I think we got some really details. Most of the content of this paper was extracted and synthesized from those papers and then added to by discussions such as this one, we had periodic teleconferences and such.
So, I suggest that people read those. Now, this comes up to the next question, and I'm going to sort of jump ahead to that because with only 15 minutes left, is where do we go with this work? Now, there is two parts to that question.
One is, is this work good enough and stable enough to, with the caveats and discussions and amplifications and such that we have developed today, to put forward as something to conserve as input to other forum, other organizations? One of the things that we are trying for this year, based upon the CSTD recommendations for IGF improvements, is for the IGF to have outputs. Now, those outputs are not decisions. Those outputs are not mandates. Those outputs are simple input to other discussions among other groups, other forum.
So, one of the questions is, has this work gotten to a point where people consider it's useful, certainly more useful than scary or dangerous? And should it be put forward? It be asked that when the Chairman's report is put out on this meeting, they include a mention of the Best Practice Forum on multistakeholder mechanisms and say, you know, we want to note this work. We want to say, here was work that was done that may want to be considered. Or, is it not ready for that?
The other question that I'd like people to answer at the same time in these last 15 minutes is, do we want to keep working? I have always conceived of us as a living document and keeping it online and talking about it periodically, letting people collect edits, collecting more case histories.
Or, is it a point where it would be called a Neiling Point in chemistry, where it is not done. It's not complete. But it is at a plateau where it should be allowed to just rest for a while and come back to it again in a couple of years. And I'm up of two minds about it so I really don't have a view. But, I wanted to put those two questions up. Those are the question that is I kind of have to bring answers or speculations or guesses to the intersession meeting where I will be reporting on this.
So, I'd like to get opinions from people. And Cheryl, I don't know if you, before opinions whether you want to add anything.
>> CHERYL LANGDON: I don't have a firm opinion one way or another.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Courthouse Economic Partnership Foundation. I am also with two minds ‑‑ maybe we should talk about how could this paper be put to the best use? How could it create the best impact? And if we find enough of these ways to put it into best impact, we have an answer to the questions you just asked.
>> BRIAN CUTE: What we hope as a starting point is that multistakeholder groups will see it and take a look, read through it. Does any of the paper mean something to their specific group and the work they are doing in the next year? Is it useful? Are some of the references there good? And then, it can serve as input there.
And quick build on what Avri said, the paper, if you read through it, really represents a lot of it is verbatim what was submitted from the community, through our consultations, what we heard on the virtual meetings, what we saw on the mailing list, and the text does do its best to represent a diversity of views and opinions, both convergent and divergent opinions there. There is disagreement within the paper and that is good, because it's a discussion forum and that's what we wanted to hear what everybody thought about these issues. So ‑‑
>> AVRI DORIA: One thing that may come out of that and I'll get you the microphone in a suggested second. So, building on what you said and what was said before, is present this, basically put a cover sheet as it were, on the paper saying, here is the result of two years of discussion. Here is some thoughts. Here are some cases. Perhaps these will be useful in your own deliberations. And we would love to hear back from you on your best cases and your further suggestions. So that is one possibility.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. I wanted to go one step further. This is limited audience. This is a group which more or less knows each and other and we meet sometimes ‑‑ and it is okay. I think this paper is of interest for a lot of organizations out there and maybe just simply to reach out to much, much broader global group and say, and maybe having now something like that and present it and consult on it, just to bring it to a wider audience to see what is going on and to put it into use. Because the point is, that's what I meant with that group here. People who worked on it, who discussed on it, they know it. But we have to push it somehow out there and maybe just a simple webinar, but there is a lot of outreach to get people who are normally not in these groups to get it.
>> AVRI DORIA: That is suing it as an output that others can have as input.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Exactly.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Behind you. Yuri has a microphone.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. I think as a follow up to this discussion, I'm looking at the possibility of using this paper to solve economic challenges to support the NDG in some part in Africa or where you find out they have challenges. How do we get these people to get out of their challenges using these maybe as a pilot?
>> AVRI DORIA: That sounds like it might have a use as an input. Great. Was Mark in the back? I saw your hand. I don't know if you have a microphone yet. And we have seven more minutes if my clock is correct.
>> MARK: Thank you. I'll be very brief. I think the paper as it stands has a lot of substantive comment and information and link to meeting sources, and so on, that warrants it being a ‑‑ being issued as an output. I'm very much supportive of that and its visibility be maximized. Immediately extra springs to mind is forwarding this to the regional and national IGFs and also to the Action 9 leads in the WSIS process, to the ITU, to UNESCO and others. I think it will be a valuable thing to do at this stage. And also underlying it is a continuous process. I think it can be built on in several ways, obviously there are going to be the opportunity with outreach to solicit more inputs into it, more examples of mechanisms that are in practice or being experimented with, pilots and so on.
And ultimately, I think we could evolve this into paper that sets out some options. I'm thinking in particular for example, from a government perspective of how Governments can improve their public policy development. And a link as you would have seen to the U.K. mechanism we decides for that, the multistakeholder device on Internet Governance. That's one model. One for near Brazil and there may be others. From which you can draw out some sort of options, part of the paper, if you like to develop that. So that is my thinking at this stage. And I'm really encouraged to continue. There will be an important audience we need to reach out certainly. Thank you.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Any other hands? Okay. Please in the front, Michael ‑‑
>> MICHAEL OGHIA: Michael with ISOC Internet Society Ambassador. I think one of the biggest things that could be built on from this document is very much kind of a how‑to guide. I think in many ways it could be a Part II of this document or this next iteration. What do stakeholder ‑‑ multistakeholder mechanisms look like? I recognize the case studies are a good introduction to a good window, but I think especially if you're looking for instance, local, regional IGFs and looking at local regional organizations, how do we actually go about creating these models? I think that could be a really good follow‑up discussion for even like I said, a Part II of this document.
>> IZUMI OKUTANI: Izumi Okutani, ITAC. I completely support the comment or suggestion from the earlier speaker about focus more on the pragmatic on how exactly this multistakeholder forum can be run and cases, not just limited to the IGF, like national and regional, but like other possibly technical or Civil Society forums. I think that would be an excellent practical reference for those people who want to have a specific idea on how they could possibly try to facilitate this kind of platform.
And, I'd also like to ‑‑ I support the idea of spreading this paper and work for people outside of IGF forum. Also, in doing so, it might be good to reemphasize that this is not like a definition. It's just sharing observations about different scenarios, different cases, and it might be worth pointing out because if people don't know the background, it's really easy for people to misunderstand this is a authoritative and definition document. So, it might be something that is worth highlighting. Thanks.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Also support that or something like that. Again, in Japan there is a personal protection new law or new system is now being implemented. And, the multistakeholder process is there but the charge don't have good understanding what the multistakeholder really is as implemented. So, in leaving one thing this is not as the other ‑‑ is not the authoritative document nor it should reflect the specific context and content of the local, or that set subject area. And, this is just universal best practice.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I'm not going to ask for anymore comments at this point but I'm going ask one general question. I have been basically think I heard generally favorable views to taking this further, to perhaps doing more work on it, to spreading to webinars, et cetera. Is there anyone that thinks all of these people that said we should push it forward and we should take it further, that disagrees with that?
I just want to make sure that if there is anybody sitting there harboring the view that this thing is awful, and it shouldn't go forward, has been given a chance to at least raise their hand once to say, they ‑‑ they don't even have to speak. I see no hands. I thank you for that. Thank you for your participation this morning and over the last year, two years.
And should we continue working within the IGF context over the next year, that is not a decision ‑‑ I know how it will go because that will go to the intercessional and then the MAG and then the Chairs and all that stuff. But hope that you will all be there and continue to contribute. Thank you.
(Applause)
>> BRIAN CUTE: If you're new to the Best Practice Forum, spread the word to other delegates. Imagine they will continue this sort of work if you're interested in them, please participate and let people know that they exist.
>> AVRI DORIA: And thank you to Remote Moderator, to Ian to pass the microphone around and to the folks that actually got this going. So thank you.
(End of session)