[WSIS CS-Plenary] On legitimacy

Tue Sep 27 05:44:22 BST 2005

Dear all,
 I am in full agreement with Arne on the give and take around legitimacy. CS
actors initially were asked to prove they were legitimate to be allowed to
participate in the process; now the process needs civil society
participation to be really legitimate.
 The best proof of this is precisely what is happening here : governments
knew that exclusion of CS actors would appear totally incoherent with the
documents they are trying to produce. So they are finding ways around the
rules. This does not exclude a possible backlash in the coming days though.
 But there is more. Debate until now seemed to revolve around a competition
of legitimacies : between civil society and govenements either one or the
other was legitimate but not both. Everybody begins to understand that the
two legitimacies may not be mutually exclusive and that their combination is
required in processes like these. From competing legitimacies to combining
legitimacies : this is the whole notion of "shared responsibility".
 Civil society's legitimacy comes from both expertise and perspective. As I
tried to say in one of the open sessions of the WGIG, governements represent
the legitimate interests of national geographic communities (people in their
countries); in addition, civil society actors's role is to make sure :
- that all voices and viewpoints are heard and can speak (ie cross-cutting
categories such as gender, regional or linguistic communities, groups
requiring special attention)
- that all aspects of an issue (technical, social, ethical, economica) are
taken into account before any governance regime or concrete project is
elaborated and adopted.
 This is a process of "concertation" as we say in French. What this summmit
has demonstrated is the need - and benefit - of having common spaces for
deliberation among the different actors very early on. But the present
international system uses Cold War negociation techniques to build a fully
participatory and collaborative architecture. No doubt the transition is
difficult. How much time would have been saved in this WSIS process if full
interactive meetings had been put in place to allow real exchange between
governemental delegations and other participants.
 Such a participatory architecture is what the follow-up to WSIS must put in
place, both for implementation of concrete projects and for the policy
debate space. This is what working groups A and B are about.
 Together we can make it happen.
 Best
 Bertrand

 On 9/26/05, arne <arne at my-mail.ch> wrote:
>
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> _______________________________________
>
> As someone who cannot be in Geneva right now and who is following the
> Prepcom online, I want to thank the drafting group for this strong and
> clear statement. Especially, it is good to see that the issue of
> legitimacy was introduced, because it is an important strategic point
> for the further process.
>
> In some previous postings, the 'walk-out' option of civil society was
> presented as 'retreat', leading to civil society silencing their own
> voices and diminishing their own influence. I don't agree with this.
> Rather, I think we should see the multistakeholder process as a
> give-and-take game. Civil society wants to see its positions reflected
> in the documents, and to achieve that end it lends legitimacy to the
> summit and its outcomes (in a situation in which, during the past
> years, the legitimacy of present arrangements of global governance has
> been challenged widely). Governments, on the other hand, are trying to
> maintain maximum control over policy processes but need the public
> legitimacy given by civil society participation.
>
> So, participation in summit processes is not a gift given to us, rather
> it's the leverage and the bargaining power we have in negotiating with
> the governments. I don't think governments would be relieved, as Avri
> notes, if civil society withdrew from it's speaking rights -- if this
> withdrawal would seriously challenge the declared multistakeholder
> process of the summit. In fact, when the situation was similar in the
> run-up to WSIS1, two years ago, the contrary happened: When civil
> society declared the multi-stakeholder process to have failed and
> announced a separate civil society declaration, the secretariat and
> many governments were furious and made immense efforts (using both the
> 'carrot' and the 'stick') to get civil society back on board and thus
> to secure the success of multi-stakeholderism (and thus of the summit
> itself).
>
> I'm not saying that the situation is the same this time, and I'm not
> saying that civil society should necessarily withdraw. But I hope that
> civil society actors who are in Geneva right now are using their
> leverages and bargaining powers wisely and creatively.
>
> Thanks for all the updates and reports, and good luck for the second
> week!
> Arne Hintz
>
> On 25.09.2005, at 20:20, Avri Doria wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > The enclosed is the draft produced by the drafting group as agreed at
> > Friday's C&T meeting. This statement is contingent on the
> > government's deciding on either option 1 or 2, i.e full exclusion or
> > speak and leave.
> >
> > Adam
> > Avri
> > Bertran
> > Izumi
> > Jeanette
> > Karen
> > Ralf
> >
> > a.
> >
> > <draft-exclusion-2.rtf>
>
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