2014-04-08

ICANN Multistakeholder Governance Model Flawed

ICANN Multistakeholderism -- sound good? Better look beneath the surface -- rotten from the botttom up and top down --

Multistakeholder governance model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: ".... Criticism of multistakeholderism comes from Paul R. Lehto, J.D., who fears that in multistakeholderism, those who would be lobbyists become legislators, and nobody else has a vote. Lehto states that "In a democracy, it is a scandal when lobbyists have so much influence that they write the drafts of laws. But in multistakeholder situations they take that scandal to a whole new level: those who would be lobbyists in a democracy (corporations, experts, civil society) become the legislators themselves, and dispense with all public elections and not only write the laws but pass them, enforce them, and in some cases even set up courts of arbitration that are usually conditioned on waiving the right to go to the court system set up by democracies. A vote is just a minimum requirement of justice. Without a vote, law is just force inflicted by the wealthy and powerful. Multistakeholderism is a coup d’etat against democracy by those who would merely be lobbyists in a democratic system...." (read more at link above)

The Multistakeholder Model, Neo-liberalism and Global (Internet) Governance | Gurstein's Community Informatics: " . . . So what exactly is the “multistakeholder model”?. . . Clearly the major Internet corporations, the US government and their allies in the technical and civil society communities are quite enthusiastic . . . . What I think is clear though is that the MS [multistakeholder] model which is being presented, is in fact the transformation of the neo-liberal economic model which has resulted in such devastation and human tragedy throughout the world into a new form of “post-democratic” governance. (This connection between the a neo-liberal economic model and multistakeholder governance is presented most clearly in a document published by the Aspen Institute with numerous Internet luminary co-authors and collaborators–”Toward A Single Global Digital Economy“. The paper argues for, outlines and celebrates the dominance of the Internet economy by the US, US corporations and selected OECD allies and provides a plan of action for the implementation of the MS model as the supportive governance structure.... In a multistakeholder governance regime of course, Internet giants such as Google or Amazon will presumably be equal partners/stakeholders in the determination of matters of Internet regulation, taxation, and the possible allocation/reallocation of overall benefits i.e. those matters which are of direct financial concern to themselves and their shareholders/owners. And these determinations will be taking place in policy contexts where there are no obvious champions/stakeholders representing the broad global public interest...."

Still excited about the multistakeholder model? Let's just forget about the public interest -- sounds like same old ICANN! 




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