[At-Large] [lac-discuss-en] Vistaprint is abandoning .vista

[Roberto Gaetano]

It is of course a risk that the multi-stakeholder model be tilted towards the interests of one part of the stakeholders - this is why, incidentally, Fadi was talking about *global* *equal* multi-stakeholder (“GEMS") model.
That there is a potential corruption of the model is no good reason for rejecting it, in particular in lack of a better system. So I would argue that the way to go is to make sure that the voice of the different stakeholders compose with the requirement of being “global” (meaning all have a chance to get to the table) and “equal” (meaning all have the same voice).
In practice, civil society, because of the inherent limitations about financial power, should be subsidised to participate, and civil society itself has to make sure that it avoids infiltration of lobbyists among its rank and file.
Cheers,
R


On 16.07.2018, at 00:05, bzs at theworld.com<mailto:bzs at theworld.com> wrote:


On July 16, 2018 at 01:48 6.Internet at gmail.com<mailto:6.Internet at gmail.com>(Sivasubramanian M) wrote:


On Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 12:16 AM <bzs at theworld.com<mailto:bzs at theworld.com>> wrote:


   Multistakeholderism is open to all -- like the Ritz Hotel.


( Understand that it is an anology that isn't perfect). Going by this anology,
it merely requires a simple, very simple fix:  Reserve a third of the hotel by
unconditional funding to the stakeholder group that can't afford it, and to
anyone relatively less privileges even from within even the wealthier
stakeholder groups. Then we will find the elusive balance.

I was thinking of how it exists, specifically ICANN, rather than some
hypothetical implementation.

The problem is that there is no tie-in (GAC possibly excepted but they
are advisory) between those who participate and those who are affected
by the various policy development processes.

Yes in theory anyone, even the poorest internet user, could simply buy
themselves plane tickets and hotel rooms etc and participate in the
meetings.

Given the actual way it's organized one would likely have to do that
three times per year for a few years to rise to any level of
participation beyond open mikes.

But it's open to anyone! Much like the Ritz Hotel.

It's no accident that multistakeholderism has been referred to as
system which is "of, by, and for the lobbyists"*.

In a nutshell get rid of anything remotely resembling popularly
elected voting members (even indirectly) and just let the big
registries, registrars, and others with financial interests be the
stakeholders and do all the policy development and approval.

Yes one can identify the occasional exception to that.

* That point was essentially on the wikipedia page for
multistakeholderism under "Criticisms" but disappeared about a year or
so ago.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multistakeholder_governance_model&diff=768793583&oldid=750897618

   Criticism of multistakeholderism comes from Paul R. Lehto,
   J.D.{{Citation needed|date=March 2014}}, 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."{{Citation needed|date=March
   2014}}
--
       -Barry Shein

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