CITI Governance - Function Follows Form: The Proposed UN Digital Cooperation Forum

2:27PM Jun 22, 2023

Speakers:

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy

Nigel Hickson

William J. Drake

Eli Noam

Anriette Esterhuysen

Milton Mueller

Hans Klein

Mike Nelson

Fiona Alexander

David Allen

Eileen Donahan

Keywords:

igf

governments

digital

issues

process

multi stakeholder process

governance

cooperation

multilateral

internet governance

question

talk

internet

part

nigel

fiona

milton

stakeholders

forum

conversation

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Hello, everybody. I'm Bill Drake. And this is the seminar global digital governance. This is the seventh century into our series that we've been running all this year that last one of the semester, the academic year here at Columbia. The videos and transcripts of the previous sessions are all available if you're interested on the website links to the announcement that you saw for this event. Today we are going to be talking about the new proposal from the United Nations Secretary General for the creation of a UN digital Cooperation Forum. Just a couple of minutes of background for me on that and then I'll introduce our panel, one of whom is still missing. So if you've been around the Internet governance space for a long time, and you have a sense of deja vu about this, you're not alone. We've all been through this before for sure. In the 21st century, we've had a range of proposals to create new broadly focused one stop shop, institutional arrangements for global Internet and digital governance issues. This has yielded One notable success obviously the launch of the Internet Governance Forum in 2006. Otherwise these efforts have generally produced fairly little on the inter governmental side we've seen all kinds of proposals during the 2002 to 2005 versus negotiations, many governments were advocating for creating some sort of new body with great centralized powers over the Internet or transferring such powers to the International Telecommunication Union. We have the Working Group on Internet Governance appointed by Kofi Annan, that some of us participated in. States insisted on adding three different competing formulations for new organizations that would have oversight over the DNS and operations of ICANN. Assan. Later, we had proposals from India for a UN committee, Internet related policies that would have broad powers. We had two cycles of working groups on enhanced cooperation in 2013 and 14 and again 2016 to 2018, in which a number of governments pushed for the creation of some sort of new intergovernmental body with brought centralized authority over the Internet was understood by everybody that that would never happen and conversation blocked out any effort to figure out how to actually enhance cooperation in existing institutions and make it more compatible with developing country interests. We had in the the various UN General Assembly reviews of the witnesses, various proposals put forward by governments and governments we all know who, for the creation of new organizations with centralized powers, and on the multi stakeholder side also we have various proposals the past 20 years, you may recall the panel organized by Estonian President Elvis that suggested the new architecture of distributed governance groups, and that Mondale initiative tried to put forward similar ideas and there were various other kinds of proposals. What all these proposals for broad scoped organizations or processes had in common was that none of them went anywhere. From a functional and operational standpoint, in every case, there was a lack of clarity about the scope of the issues that would be covered the structure and modalities of cooperation, the nature of the outputs and so on. And from a political standpoint, there was always inadequate, inadequate levels of consensus in my in among all states and stakeholders that would be needed to make something happen. This is the kind of stuff in international relations scholars spend all their time trying to explain. Of course, more recently, we've had a spate of new frameworks being established, particular kinds of issues, issue specific frameworks for AI platforms, things like that, in bodies like the council, Europe, European Union, so on, but no new formal organizations yet being created there to manage those things.

Authority over large digital issues remains dispersed across multiple institutional spaces with varying levels of participation. And there are always people who advocate the need for some sort of one stop shop with broad multilateral participation that all countries all governments can participate in, under the aegis of the United Nations. And that's been a leitmotif for the past 20 years. And it's in that context. Then we have UN Secretary General Gutierrez introduction of the global digital compact initiative as part of his broader than reform agenda over the past couple of years. In 2019, we had the high level panel on digital cooperation, which put forward three alternative architectures for cooperation that didn't really go forward but to a couple of innovations, the establishment of the leadership panels for the IGF and the hiring of a technology giant by 2022. Position of course, being held by Amandeep Singh Gill, who will be talking about later probably. And subsequently, then there's been a lot of process through underground terrorists with the roadmap. I will cooperate cooperation of various informal consultations and members, but different digital issues, although not this proposal for a new forum, and the issue brief that was released then, in May and that the Secretary General introduced to the General Assembly in June which is the basis of this meeting, in which the idea of a new UN digital Cooperation Forum was proposed. Next steps are going to be in the summer development of additions paper, and then that will be presented to a ministerial meeting in September that's supposed to help tee up. further work on the digital compact global digital compact, an eye towards the UN summit on the future in 2024. And then the Western World Summit on information society review in 2025. Where the IGs mandate will be reviewing. It seemed clear from the outset of this whole high level process and 2019 that there'd be eventually a proposal for a new organization. That's almost always the standard operating procedure and a lot of these international policy spaces. You identify a problem and you say, well, we need an organization to manage it. And during recess, we often heard the government and UN people say things like an organization for transportation, we have an organization for pollution. Why don't we have an organization so the Internet is there not just being one organization for each policy problem? So we have that proposal for a new organization outlined in the main brief as part of a larger set of proposals from the Secretary General, for new processes on a range of different different issues, including platforms and so on. The under two pages that describe the digital Cooperation Forum feeds in a manner that's strikingly similar to the Internet Governance Forum mandate was written by the wig in 2005. and approved by the witness if you read the thing. It's interesting. A few differences between the IGF there are notable but there's a lot of overlap. Substantive focuses on specified and unlimited it seems to be any and all digital stuff. assumably the Internet is not off limits. The mandate calls for facilitating transparent dialogue and collaboration, knowledge and information sharing, pooling, learning, and promoting cross border learning, identifying policy gaps and possible solutions, all the stuff that the GFS has to do. It's a non negotiating body forum, just like the IGF dissipation to decision making be a bit different, says in the report that while a global framework should be driven by member states, the involvement of private sector and civil society is essential. So instead of multi stakeholder decision making, it sounds like it'd be multi stakeholder consultation into an government driven process seems to be the input. And the form would be based on tripartite engagement, governance, governance businesses, so society may ask where's the Internet technical community in their apparently, are deemed to be part of civil society, which is interesting. They are independently representative, of course, in the IGF, the OECD, and so on. Instead of a mag like the IGF has there would be a tripartite advisory group a tag that would plan the annual event, and there'll be an annual report from the Secretary General. And all this would exist happily in an ecosystem in a hub and spoke way. Existing buyers including the IGs. So you'd have in Geneva, a multi stakeholder process talking about digital issues, and you'd have in in New York and intergovernmental process, talking about digital issues, and there'd be no overlap. So some interesting questions there. So there's a lot to talk about here. It's important because they're looking to try to put forward a newspaper for September when the ministers meet. And to do that we're going to have three experts have been long involved in all these discussions. FionaAlexander is distinguished policy strategist in residence at the School of International Service, and as distinguished Policy Fellow at the Internet covenants lab. at American University. Previously for 20 years, Fiona was the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the US Department of Commerce where she was Associate Administrator for international affairs, kind of a bureaucratic way of saying she was in charge of international policy. Anriette Esterhuizen is a Senior Advisor for Internet governance at the Association for progressive communication, the APC, she was APC's Executive Director from 2000 to 2017, and served as chair of the IGF multi stakeholder advisory group for 2019 to 2021. Anriette was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013. And she is joining us from South Africa, hopefully with sufficient bandwidth to get through the meeting. And we have Nigel Hickson, who works on Internet Governance at the United United Kingdom's Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, where among other roles, he's the UK representative government advisory committee to the ICANN in ICANN from 2012. He worked for ICANN in Brussels in Geneva, before returning to the UK Government in 2020, to work on Brexit related data protection issues. So that's our panel. That's the background. That's our panel. The mechanics will be as always, we'll do four rounds toward the top informal conversation that at the top of the hour will move towards open discussion. See, we have a good turnout of a lot of people who are fairly knowledgeable in this area. So I'm hopeful that we'll be able to have a lively and interactive conversation.

So thank you very much. Bill. Let me, before the questions get into the details, tell them and you, and I'm trying to represent here as I always do the people who are interested in the subject but not part of the charmed circle of people who meet and talk to each other about Internet governance continuously. And they and I would like to understand certain certain basic things which I hope that will be discussed here. Which we hope that we will learn at the end of this meeting. Question, what is the problem that requires a new initiative? What is the problem that requires a new initiative? Second, isn't there already a respectable international organizational effort in place to deal with this problem? What else do we need? There are about 20 in my count UN organized initiatives in this area by this. Third, will the new forum make a difference for us? Why is this initiative happening in political terms? What is behind it beyond the official documents? Fifth, is it even possible to reach an international shared vision that goes beyond platitudes, and is it even desirable? And sixth and last, what is the perspective of all of this by the community, not just big tech, that's easy, but also by the smaller innovators, and I hope that at the end of this hour and a half, I and the rest of the audience will understand some more about the answers to these questions.

Eli, those are all questions that we intend to address. So if you could put your hand down so I could drag Nigel's here to the front of the screen please.It won't let me do it until you go.

Alright, so now I can see all of our speakers together in place. So let's begin then. Let's start with the discussion indeed of what are we talking about? How did we get here? Who what why how of all this for folks who are not deeply entrenched in all this stuff. So who are the who question Who wants a new digital cooperation foreign? What's the political market demand for such a creature? What kind of structures are being proposed here? Really? I mean, I gave an outline of what's in the document. But there's obviously more to it than that. Why? What's the substantive case that's being made for why we need such a thing? And it has to be in New York, etc. The way that it is. And how was this process conceived and promoted into the international spirit? These are among some of the questions I think it'd be good. Just get on the table. For starters, who would like to begin just raise your hand that are on this call. Fiona? Why don't you start for us?

Hi everyone, and everyone that I've known for a long time. I was part of Eli's charmed group, I guess, which isn't a new title, I guess I can add to my resume.

I'm not actually sure why this is needed. And I think that's something that we can talk about, but I do feel like that the more and more technology pervades every part of everyone's life. Everyone thinks they have a say, and everyone wants to be a part of it. And there's a lack of understanding. There's a lack of shared history over the last 20 years, even amongst newer people and government agencies, I think, but everyone's looking for a way to have a role and to solve a problem that they think exists. I think one of the things that would be interesting to discuss this conversation and hear from others is, you know, we did agree to create the Internet Governance Forum now almost 20 years ago, and is part of what's happening a result of people not getting what they want out of the IGF and so they are looking for another venue to have a conversation is part of this. Just new people wanting to put their imprimatur and have a say, as part of this the desire to actually have a conversation in New York versus Geneva or other UN hubs. And I think that's actually something worth drilling down to in previous cycles. You know, we weren't thrilled about having some of these conversations in the UN broadly, but having them in ITU or in other parts of the world where you actually had more expert agency participations, even amongst government experts, more expert agencies versus New York, New York tends to be very politicized and very political with a capital P and so maybe this proposal just for proposal reflects the reality of technology issues, becoming more politicized in that way. But from my perspective, and let the some of the questions that LA laid out, you know, I don't know what problem we're trying to solve. I don't think you know, there's a lack of view and effort across the UN family addressing these issues. And in fact, this seems to ignore some of that and actually not take advantage of the existing agencies. And I don't think that anything that comes out of this will make a big difference either, because I'm not sure that there's big buy in so I think maybe I would just offer those as opening remarks to what you've asked him what else you mentioned.

Great. Nigel or Anriette, whichever you'd like to jump in. Just please do.

I can jump in Bill. I think I will. I'll switch off my camera. My connection is bad.

Great questions, Eli. I agree as well. I think. Firstly, I do think there is an institutional gap. I think that digitalization is broader than then Internet governance. And it's bringing new challenges. I think there's been a big shift since WSIS. You know WSIS was all about the opportunity, the opportunity and the potential of ICTs and the Internet for development for better governance for enabling human rights. And I think what's happened in the last 20 years, unfortunately, in my view, is that there's much more of a concern about not the positive potential of the Internet, but the potential for harm. And in fact, I think there's a preoccupation, disproportionately large preoccupation, with the potential for harm, but it's real people feel seriously about it, governments feel serious about it, you know, many users do.

I think the UN system itself is not coordinating internally. There is a body called UNGIS, the UN group for the Information Society, which is made up of representation from UNESCO, the ITU the IGF, and so on, CSTD, but it's not really functioning effectively. I think the IGF itself has failed to evolve as a... not as a platform, because if you look at the IGF agenda and what people talk about at the IGF, it's very broad, it's not just Internet governance, It's everything from AI to platform regulation. But the IGF as a, I don't want to say institution because it isn't really as an institution, but it hasn't actually succeeded in galvanizing this massive bottom up network that that animates it, and extracting knowledge and discussion and debate effectively from it. And I think the other reason that there is some kind of need, is that governments are playing power games, you know, we have the Declaration of the Future of the Internet. A new set of principles coming from the US, with the EU endorsing it very actively. And we have again, I think, some kind of move towards good governance and bad governance, which I think is really unfortunate. And I think this is also going to, it takes far away from that WSIS vision of an inclusive Internet, inclusive use of ICTs.

So maybe there is a need, but when it comes to whether this initiative is actually going to effectively fulfill this need, I agree completely with Fiona, I don't think it will. I don't think it's going about it in the right way. It's not really building on what is in place. It's not building on with this. It's not building on the GGE, the norms and responsible state behavior in cyberspace. It's not building on the experience and the practice of the IGF on the network of the IGF, the vast national and regional IGF network. And, and I don't think it's really inclusive either, you know, so, in terms of how it's approaching the multi stakeholder model and the multi stakeholder, what we've learned about what works about it and what not what does not work about it?

And so I think, I'm not very hopeful that it's actually going to succeed, but I do not think that there is no need whatsoever. I think just one little thing that's in the Global Digital Compact, the notion of digital public goods, for example, I think it's it's a conversation that we haven't really heard about the Internet, the publicness of the Internet, or the role of the Internet in creating public goods, you know, so there are lots of conversations that we need to have. I'm just not convinced that it's going about it in a way that's going to fill all these gaps that I've outlined.

Sorry, I was I was muted. Thanks. I'm good. Nigel. Go ahead.

Thank you Bill. Good afternoon. Good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be able to take part in in in such a in such a discussion and thanks for the opening remarks, Eli, and thanks Fiona, Anriette.

So, is it deja vu that was a question poised in the chat. And I think the answer is no. I think some of us are sometimes guilty about saying that these existential crisis in Internet governance go in waves. And to an extent, perhaps history has shown as they do go in... there doing going waves from 2005 onwards, so to speak, but I think this is this is something different. And we will perhaps get onto some of the process and the structural issues later. But in terms of you know, who wants it and why it's needed. I think we really have to reflect on not what we in the UK or not what you might in the US or what some of the other sort of Western or real countries have. We need to reflect on the needs and aspirations of a great deal of other countries? Yes, it's very easy for the UK to go along to the g7. Yeah, we can say things that the g7 it's very easy for us to go along to the OECD. It's very easy to ask to go on to be well, I was gonna say it's easy to to speak in the European Union, but actually it's not very easy for the UK to speak in the European Union anymore, but you know, within the European club, if you like.

But, for many countries that their voices is less able to be heard that and we hear this at the ITU, a number of countries asked at the Plenipotential, where can we raise cybersecurity treaties, then?Where can we raise Internet governance issues, if we can't raise it at the ITU, you know, where can we raise raise disinformation, where can we raise other issues that countries are facing in terms of behaviors on the Internet? And I think to an extent the UN has responded to this, whether it's something in the water or whatever, I think the Secretary General has caught the vibe. I mean, they've certainly caught the vibe on artificial intelligence. But before that, I think they were catching the vibe on on digital that there is something here there are legitimate concerns, of of have a number of countries, as we've heard from the g7, and other countries, and the UN is a forum where people want to go and discuss these issues. So, I don't think we should be surprised, and I don't think that, you know, this is something that's just going to go away.

Now, in terms of the structures and in terms of what happens. Well, I think it's to be to be decided, but I certainly don't think that it's something we could ignore. I think it's something that we're going to have to work with. The question is, of course, how we're going to work with it, what structures it needs, and what the outcome might be. But I think those are, those are secondary questions in terms of the need for us all to respond to, you know, some of these issues. And I think, you know, and react was completely right when she said, You know, it's not Internet governance anymore. In particular, we return it Internet governance. We obviously discuss Internet governance issues in a number of places. But it's really it's really wider than that some of the new issues we're seeing and it's not so much of the governance of the Internet, although that is still argued about. It's really the governance on the Internet and how, how different countries can cope with the with what's going on. So I'll stop there for now. Thank you.

Thanks, Nigel. So I think we've heard a very kind of different views in our opening approach, which is great. So on the one hand, there's the argument that there is gaps and that honry up and forward, and that there's a desire among governments and other actors, to see those gaps addressed in some manner. And you have Nigel making the argument that there's a need for multilateral inclusive stuff, but at the same time, there's some skepticism about Fiona expressed, and others about the particular formulation. The question of course, is if there are gaps and of course you remember that in the working group and enhance cooperation, we spent a lot of time trying to identify gaps that went on for months and months, trying to list what are the issues that somehow are orphaned and not being taken care of anywhere? At the end of the day, the that effort came to very little real consensus about what was orphan because in fact, many issues are being taken up in different places. They're just not being taken or taken up into places that some people want them taken. And so the argument is, you know, yes, there's, there's work being done on platforms and AI in this and then the other, but it's not being done in a broad multilateral setting like the UN and so therefore, so that's, I guess, part of the argument. Let's talk about the second aspect of this the relationship to the IGF. As I noted in my introduction, with the exception of the implied scope, which seems to be digital beyond the Internet, digital everything in the annual report that would be generated by the Secretary General, much of the way the mandate is written sounds exactly like the IGF. And so the question is, what do we make of that? In what's really going on here, between New York UN members and the IGF that there seems to be a proposal to do something like the IGF but do it in Geneva in a multistakeholder way, but in New York, in a more government led way. With this hub and spokes system that is outlined in the report, where these two very different processes would coexist alongside each other, would that be stable and when we get to time for the the IGF mandate to be renewed at the whistle is plus 20 and 2025 if there's additional Cooperation forum where the governments that have opposed the IGF in the past they well get the digital Cooperation Forum. Why do we need Internet Governance Forum that does the same thing. There's a lot of questions around here. So let's talk about the nexus between the IGF and this new concept. Who'd like to start with that?

Just go in the same order. Fiona. How about we just go alphabetical?

I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm sort of struck by the repeated attempts to do the same thing over and over and I think Bill kind of laid them out and that NetMundial initiative, I think was a similar exercise, right, which was their gaps and where should there be gaps, and can you do a hub and spoke kind of thing? I think the enhanced cooperation exercise, tried to do the same thing at some level. And so I'm a little bit perplexed as to why, you know, a conversation driven out of New York where the conversations are political, and, you know, driven by geopolitics would make a difference. You know, there has always been a conversation in New York on these issues. Every year, in September, there was an annual ICT for D resolution, which you some folks may remember or may not have been involved in, and these issues always came up in that regard as well. It was a one resolution thing and a one day thing. You know, many weeks leading up to it, but it was always there. So I'm just a little bit perplexed as to, you know, maybe this is what we need to dig into deeper, which is why are all these efforts to address the same gap or perceived gap don't work, right. And where do they where do they fall apart? You know, I mean, part of the challenge, I think, for the IGF and for the longevity of the IGF is getting everybody to show up. And over the years. You know, Western governments have shown up at IGF and in some cases, developing country governments have participated in bigger numbers than others. But IGF really has a big influx and participation by the civil society and academia, the Internet, technical community, and private sector participation ebbs and flows. And so you know, they, you know, I get the corollary here is maybe you have the same conversation, but you have governments leading the charge. And, again, I don't disagree that you need to have multilateral conversations on these issues. You know, the, the ITU Council Working Group on Internet, I think, which Nigel into for many years, also has a similar exercise, right? And that didn't work either. So I'm just really skeptical that a conversation based in New York, which you know, the the agenda and the capacity and the skill sets of the folks that represent the member states in New York, are not deep in technical skills. That's not what they're there for. How serious of a conversation can you have at an annual meeting in New York, where you have the people from the missions in New York to talk about very technical or very challenging issues without those conversations about

Somebody needs to mute. Go ahead Fiona.

I take your point, that was great, thanks. Anriette?

Maybe, maybe, maybe just one thing, before Anriette starts. This terminology issue is something that would be helpful to dig into too because Internet governance versus digitalization versus cyber, you know, everybody means something slightly different when they talk about it. And I think people are always talking past each other as well. I mean, the way I read the working definition of Internet governance, all of these things could fit into it if you wanted to. So define it that way. So that's, I think, part of the challenge. Sometimes it's a purposeful use of a different word. And other times it's just, you know, not understanding or not wanting to have all these things fit into one word. There's no reason why you couldn't take the IGF and make it the IGF+ or the variations of things that have been proposed and have this is the place to deal with all these issues. If there was the political will and the will of the stakeholder community to make it happen.

I want to come back to that question, IGF+, in a minute

Andreea Thanks, Bill. I agree with

Fiona completely. I'm not gonna put my camera on sorry, my connection I keep getting a message. It's unstable and I think there's a certain lack of rigor, the policy brief, you know, with all due respect to the people who wrote it, I think there's a certain lack of thoroughness in preparation for this whole process. If you look at our common agenda, the SG actually I think it's a really comprehensive and a strong document. And the you know, the overarching message from the Secretary General, is the need to be multilateral and multi stakeholder. Now, I think that's legitimate. I don't see and the discussion around the global digital compact and the global and the digital Cooperation Forum is serious work that looks at the complexity of multi stakeholder processes that actually, you know, works with evidence on what we've learned in the last 20 years. And what works and what doesn't work, you know, looking at the NetMundial looking at the IGF looking at other processes looking at the ICANN model, looking at the ITU Council Council working group discussions, and I think it completely simplifies its approach to multi stakeholder with this tripartite model. I think it completely overlooks the value and the grind works of having a bottom up process, as we've managed to establish with the IGF and with all its imperfections, people own the IGF people, the IGF is created not by the UN, but by communities who participate in it who fill in those horrible forms for workshop applications. People like both Jack and I think I don't see that, that seriousness of actually building on what has come before learning from lessons that has been, you know, learned and that I find very disappointing. Actually. I agree with you on I think the wicked definition of Internet governance is sufficiently broad, maybe it needs to be broader. Maybe there is a need for a new forum. Maybe there is a need for for multilateral processes. To talk about decision making. But whatever. The next steps are, we still need the IGF we need a space where there's broad based public participation, a space for learning as best for new people to enter the debate. space that's not intimidating. And, and I don't really see any respect, I'm sorry to use this word, but I don't see real respect coming from this initiative for the 20 years of practice. From from the idea of, or maybe it's not quite 20 years, but actually of the whole post recess. Period. I think that, you know, we've learned so much at national level, and also of global and regional level, and I don't see that reflected in this initiatives. Why I don't know I think the UN in spite of my two years as chair of the UN IGF multi stakeholder advisory group, and I find it very difficult to understand why the IGF does not implement recommendations that it makes itself about how to strengthen its own processes, and why what where are the bottlenecks, where are the barriers? I'm not not sure I understand that. But I'm convinced that if we don't build on what we've achieved so far, if we don't look at what itu has done, what UNESCO has done, ICANN, ISOC, IGF, etc. The entire was this process, then we're not really going to do anything more than establish just one more parallel process. That's not likely to really have significant results. And I think we'll just one thing I think that you know, if you look at what Ambassador Gill says, I agree with him there is a need for greater accountability by states and by corporations. I'm just not convinced that this is going to give us that greater accountability.

Very well put Anriette. Nigel.

Yes, thanks very much. And there's there's a lot going on in the chat as well. Some were really great remarks. I love the sort of notion of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the upper chamber and the lower chamber. I don't recommend that following the UK model, but there we go.

But, four points really. First of all, I was I read the report twice, I think with the Secretary General's issue report. And, first off, I mean, let's say it's good to have a report of this nature. And I think it did display, as I said earlier, a real sort of an angst here that the UN should be able to respond to some of the wishes of perhaps, the members, but I think, in some places, I wouldn't say it was flawed. I mean that but it's not up to me to say things like that, but certainly in reflecting on the hub and spoke model, I think, it didn't really give due credence for for, for the bodies as Henriette and others have said that have existed for so long and I've got such a history. When we consider the you know, the UN IGF since 2006. And, and other bodies at all, and I can have actually written quite a good blog on on this and some of the some of their takes on some of the elements of of that report. And yes, the digital Cooperation forum. I mean, is it's interesting to read about it, and quite clearly if there is going to be a global digital compact, and I think the assumption has to be that there will be something it might be something that's fairly high level, but if it says anything at all, then it will have to have some sort of body to at least be able to discuss what progress governments and other stakeholders and made on some of the main issues that it identifies after the, you know, the summit of the future next year. So we'll need some sort of body to take stock of that, but I can't see it. I can't see how this body is going to really interplay with some of the other, you know, existing bodies we have, and when it comes to the UN IGF I mean, I've heard the ambassador to talk about this and he's been asked about this. I mean, he was asked at rights calm. He was asked he was asked the other day in the European dialogue on Internet governance in in Finland, where there was a discussion on windows in the GDC. And, you know, he quite clearly said that he sees the un un IGF as continuing and being a, you know, a force for for discussion. But then you know, it's very unclear how it would link to the digital Cooperation forum. And I think you know, this is this is just fundamentally different. I mean, here we have such an incredible network, such an incredible national regional network of youth IGF, some country, IHS and regional IGs and their bottom up I mean, all right, they're not always buttoned up in all aspects, but in many cases, stakeholders are coming together and deciding on agendas, and we see this in the UN IGF and as gainers, Andrea said yes. Can you imagine an IGF taking place this year that didn't discuss artificial intelligence? I mean, you know, there are going to be discussions of artificial intelligence, no one is going to say, is this an Internet governance issue or is this a digital issue? These things are going to be discussed and this reflects that, you know, the real aspiration and needs and, and wants of other people. But third thing I think, is in relation to you know, what's going on in in New York and Geneva. And clearly, you know, perhaps there is a feeling in New York that they need to seize the initiative here to an extent but, you know, we can't just we can't just forget the historical situation we're in and we can't just forget the incredible work that's done in Geneva across a number of different bodies. So So I think, you know, in terms of digital Cooperation forum, a lot of thinking will have to be done.

Thanks. I just want to pick up on some of the points quickly now. We'll do one more question then open it up. Thinking about this relationship and IGF I can't help with the reality that there's been a lot of criticism of the IGF we've been listening to for years from some parties. And a lot of that criticism throughout the process through the high level panel and going forward, was being echoed in the context of the global digital compact discussion. And we hear all the time, you know, the IMF can't get anything done. It's not a decision making forum, the need and so on. And part of the problem, of course, is the reason that the IGF isn't, quote, stronger, quote, getting something done is because the parties don't want it to. There's disagreements amongst states and stakeholders as to what being stronger and getting something done would mean and it's not obvious to me why having a digital Cooperation Forum would overcome that. I mean, if you could convene an annual meeting in New York, to all the governments that are disagreeing about fundamentals in the IGF not disagree in New York, the democratic countries of the world and the autocracies of the world now come together on a shared vision of how to govern digital forms or AI or whatever else, you know, 193 Something countries collaborating together, mechanisms of this and just never been spelled out and indeed, the description of the process itself is extremely schematic so it's just sort of put out there. This is the thing that will do without any kind of looking backward at previous experiences, and trying to learn from other efforts haven't worked. And then advancing you know, not will do anything. It'll be under us, and it'll work better. Oh, girl, that. I mean, I think that the motivations are good, but it's not sure. It's not obvious to me yet. But the practicality of it. Let me ask one more question and then we can open it up to the broader discussion. Let's so far, no governments have spoken in favor of this. But the Secretary General introduced it in the General Assembly. No governments said we need this. This is great. Let's go. Countries have a lot of different agendas developed countries are very focused on the SDGs and not in some of the future in the digital stuff. Other countries are concerned about preserving the IGF. It's not clear whether this will get traction in the event that it doesn't get traction, and we want to try to provide an alternative way for New York for the Secretary General to be engaged in doing something useful. Inspired by this event, what are the options for taking forward these digital issues like New York? I mean, in the past, we've had things like the UN ICT Task Force proposals for different types of networks, things like that. Is there any kind of alternative way in which the UN could provide a more inter governmental space that is not a forum and does not compete with the IGF but as somehow useful, alternatively, are the ways to simply strengthen the IGF to meet all those needs so that they want to have this concern? What is your thinking about going forward? What are some ways of trying to get something positive out of this initiative and build consensus? Fiona, any thoughts?

I was kind of wondering about that. Look, I think it helps raise the profile of the issue set, right. That's always a good thing. It's important that people have this conversation. It seems like on a regular basis, I think I was struck by Andreas earlier opening comments about change in perception or interest in technology, maybe 20 years ago was a little bit pollyannish in terms of like, you know, the Internet and technology helping solve problems. And now we have some problems and we don't have tools to solve those problems are able to keep up so there. There's a perception of that maybe it helps build some political will, which is needed. But I do think, you know, I was really surprised that the report didn't lean more into in reference to the IGF Plus model, since the process from last year two years ago proposed that. So I think that was a little bit dispiriting from that perspective. So I think in response to this I don't I'm not sure there's going to be stakeholder feedback on this report. As far as I can tell, I do know that the issue specific deep dives that they were having, were not even completed before the report came out. So that's also kind of a, a process red flag for me. So I think it's important that you know, stakeholders I guess, make their voices known and figure out what to do it and maybe have some conversations about this leading into the IGF at the IGF and Kyoto, to see if something can come out of the IGF that influences the process. But, again, I really did think that the pivot a couple years ago to IGF plus for most stakeholders and countries was going to be a good path forward. And I'm surprised it didn't appear in this report in the same way.

The one thing I would note, though, is that the ministerial meeting that will take up this issue is in September and the IGF is in October.

And there's always a sequencing problem. You know, the other thing that I might raise here as well is that, you know, I think I've said this a couple times in the last couple of years, which is one of the reasons that the IGF has been hobbled a little bit and it's way under approach and dealing things as a lack of sustained funding. And I think it's probably time to revisit or actually have the conversation about making the IGF part of the regular un budget. It wasn't at the time, at the behest of the US and other countries for various reasons. We don't need to go into but if you're really going to invest and you're really going to try to do the do these things, and even if you want to try to have New York be a monitoring system as as Andre was suggesting in the chair, you can't do that without committed staff and time and expertise and resources. So I think that, you know, even if you want New York to do monitoring, monitoring by the member states and the General Assembly via a one day meeting, I mean, that seems not really a way to do monitoring. So I don't know I think the modality for the monitoring would need to be explained, but none of this works without sustained resources and funding anyway.

Anriette, Your thoughts

champion? Oh, well, I agree with all that. Well, to go back to your question. I think that ship has sailed. I think digital is everywhere and everything is digital. I think this notion that we can centralized decision making on on digitalization and on policy and governance and regulation that relates to digital that's gone. And but that does not mean that there are certain principles that might be lacking. And I think there are I think that we still are not really sure about what the Internet is, for example, is it a, as the NetMundial said, it is a global public resource that should be managed in the public interest. You know, is it just a network of networks of lots of different stakeholders, government that tech community universities, you know, managing and building parts of it? I think there is a little bit of a gap there. And I think that's why we see the declaration of the future of the Internet coming from the US. That's why we see the EU having its sets of instruments, but I don't think those instruments are helping us because I think they are not rooted in that spirit of cooperation between everyone irrespective of where they stand in terms of sort of cold water polarity, which is sticking its ugly head out again. And so there is a gap there, but I just you know, as I said, earlier, I'm not sure that the global digital compact is taking us to a space where it's filling that gap. If it is if it does, if we can actually come up with some very broad based principles that address for example, digital inequality. digital inequality is in my view, still the greatest problem that we face much bigger problem than AI, you know, or even cyber insecurity, we still have less than half the world meaningfully connected to the Internet. Now if the global digital compact can take us forward in getting agreement between governments on seriously addressing that, that would be good. And yes, then it should be monitored. The IGF can play a role the UN General Assembly ICT for development resolution that we are not talked about, can play a role. Human Rights mechanisms can play a role. And I just don't see the GDC and this proposed digital Cooperation Forum, moving towards that kind of very broad based agreement to really take us forward. So well, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but I think that that, I mean, and whatever happens, I think the IGF remains, I think, you know, and that's the strength of the IGF model. I know there are a lot of weaknesses in the IGF. But the strength of the IGF is that whatever happens elsewhere. It's a ready made constantly growing and evolving public participation space, and you're anyone who cares about good governance, whether it's multilateral multistakeholder, or a combination of both. Without good public participation, you will never have good governance, and that's why I find it so incredibly disappointing. And not just disappointing, worrying that this initiative is not actively building on that element of the IGF.

Thank you, Nigel?

Thank you.. I'll be brief because it'll be good to see the sea people contribute. Has the ship sailed? Well, you know, we'll have to see and it's a very interesting reflection in the chat not not just on the on the on the issue of whether Internet should have a capital I or not, which I think we've had to give up on unfortunately, but but also, you know, what, what, what, what is the real alternative here? My gut feeling tells me that there is going to be something at the end of this process there. Is going to be some global digital compact, perhaps it will be high level principles and therefore, perhaps the Digital Cooperation Forum or whatever, will essentially be be trying to understand what progress has been made in various areas. And, you know, perhaps that's that might have some, some merit. But, what is the alternative? Well, the IGF is an alternative in terms of a body that yes, needs reform, it needs money needs, it needs greater resources. It needs perhaps a slightly different modus operandi. But essentially, it is this this, this, this model that allows discussion, you know, whether it's nationally globally or, or, or regionally on a whole range of different issues, and I think, you know, it's something to be treasured, in that in that respect.

I really, you know, I really

don't think that that we can, we can go forward on the basis that that simply member states our governments are going to give up, on on on on you know, on having some sort of multilateral process, but I don't think that we have to agree, a multilateral process that's going to try and second guess, all these all these bodies on the on all these bodies on the end of spokes, or whatever that model should be and I just can't see that working in any sense at all.

Thank you.

Okay, great. Thanks, Nigel. Okay, well, we've come up to the top of the hour and we have a lot of people here in the group who have a lot of experience around these issues. So I'd like to open it up to open discussion. We've got a half hour to play with. If people who are interested in contributing could just raise their hand and introduce themselves. Say where they are in the universe and so on, then, that'd be great. And of course, try to limit yourself to you know, a couple of minutes so that we can get voices in okay, we start with David Allen

David?

David Allen in Concord mass actually in the US, and the biographical information will come out in the comment looking back to the working group on enhanced cooperation, and it's failure as been related several times here. From my experience inside it through all of it. There's a simple diagnosis Bill put it very nicely. Democratic and autocratic governments couldn't agree. And because consensus was required, it wasn't going anywhere. And of course, the implication of that is that this is quintessentially a political discussion. Therefore, there is some reason to think about putting it in New York, where is a political discussion? Are there problems with introducing the technology there? Well, if there are, then that's part of what has to be addressed, to bring in the technology course, this observation that New York needs to be the place of my diagnosis is correct. doesn't address the details of what's been proposed here and whether or not it might get anywhere.

Thanks David, why don't I take like three questions and then go back to the panel rather than going back each time so people can cluster their thoughts to respond to several at once,

Milton?

I'm just struck through all these comments, who

Who are you?

I am, you just named me, I am Milton, Milton Mueller. I'm a professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, USA.

I'm so all of these conversations about the IGF or the role of various UN or multilateral agencies. There's two sort of elephants in the room that I just want to identify. Number one is the fact that the UN is a bureaucracy that needs to justify its existence. And that many, if not all of these initiatives. are in effect the UN seeking relevance and finding a role for itself as an organization or as an institution. Which you know, the correct answer may in fact be that there is no role for it beyond what is already doing with the with the UN. The other elephant in the room is you know, people persistently overlook, you know, what is the need for governance and what creates a need for it. So, for example, with ICANN, we have a global governance regime, because you have a shared resource called the DNS route. And we have to agree on how to coordinate that. And when you're talking about governance of the digital ecosystem. There is no single point of leverage. There is no clear objective there is it's not clear what you're regulating. And so, you know, things like the the digital divide, for example, is all about economic development and whether people have the resources to acquire and whether people have the the suppliers have the resources to produce less expensive digital devices on things and networks. So it's no not clear in most of these cases. Why political governance through a nation state system is needed for and why we can't rely on various forms of market governance or other kinds of social cooperation to bring about desired results without the top down kind of approach of a UN agency. So I'm just like, really, why do we need any kind of a new UN initiative? And the final point is that, you know, the IGF was specifically sold to us as we don't need multilateral governance. We need dialogue we need to bring people together to discuss what they can do in other forums. And I believe that that original vision of the IGF was valid and I don't know why people keep saying there's something wrong with it, or there's some huge gap that needs to be filled.

Thanks. I think those two questions are both juicy enough, that maybe we should go back to the panel now. So hands and see they'll come to you in a second and get people to react to that. So on the one hand, we have David saying it's political why not? In New York and on the other hand, Milton arguing that this is a there's a, a public public interest, kind of or public goods kind of explanation, rent seeking, bureaucratic relevance, seeking dynamic going on here at the UN, and a functional question about the actual need to do something to get the response from the panelists but did we lose somewhere? So your picture on React, can you reply?

And I'm not sure I can reply, though. I think Milton, I mean, I think that that know how you feel about nation state level governance versus, you know, other levels of global governance really depends on where you sit and who you are. You know, if in my case where I still don't have adequate Internet connectivity, and I don't have Internet connectivity, because there isn't enough infrastructure, and that is a result of market failure. It's a result of poor governance. And so to me, and what my nation state does, still really matters. So I mean, I think it's not an either or answer a Multan. I think that the UN is not going to deliver connectivity, but the UN could develop certain goals and targets as it did in whizzes and as the ITU is, in fact, trying to build on implementing, and so I think Multimap my answer to you as the UN does have value I think is the only level playing field still, and I think Nigel said there's really well, I just am not convinced that this process is building on on the particular strengths of the UN, rather than on trying to create a new process, which I think could be just a parallel process and not add any particular value. So for example, market failure. I don't see anything really in the global digital digital compact, or in the briefing paper. That takes us to a point where we actually develop new incentives, new financial models, different ways of addressing the infrastructure gap and bridging the digital divide. It's just not specific enough. And I think that's probably part of the problem that that more generalities are not going to take us any further. I think we need to target very specific problems and work on them. in specific ways, and not just have more sort of overarching and good intention compacts.

Thanks Anriette. Fiona has never dropped off, but she'll be back in a second. Nigel, go ahead.

Yes, thanks very much. You know, thanks for those comments, Milton and, David. I mean, on the on the enhance cooperation. I had the privilege of being a member of both as sort of working groups and you know, looking back, you do wonder whether, you know, we missed an opportunity to at least develop something because, as you rightly say, David, I mean, it was sort of political differences, of course, different approaches. And I suppose the concern that many, many of us had, and I was working for ICANN at the time that you know, that we didn't want to, you know, that Tunis Agenda to unravel, we didn't want, you know, the handful of games that have been adopted in 2005 to somehow go go backwards. But yeah, you know, it was an interesting process for that. Reason. I think, you know, Milton, you know, yeah, I mean, we can we can say what we like and think what we like about the UN of course, but but I think it's it's natural that in the UN in the same way that you know, the UN Secretary General is worried obviously about climate change and about disasters and about other other political issues, is also wants to reflect, you know, concerns on digital so I, I suspect that, you know, it's not going to be something that is, is forgotten about and indeed you know, we, you know, we want to use the UN when it's being used for us as the government's in a in a positive way. We want to say to the UN, you know, do more to fund the IGF or do more to enhance resources here and there. So, you know, we I think we have to be consistent in our thoughts. Well, that doesn't mean to say that we have to agree things which are just not going to work and, you know, betray the sense of logic entirely.

Thanks for that, Nigel. I just want to emphasize one thing from Milton's question. I think it's easy to talk about the political issue and the question of bureaucratic interest and all that. But the other aspect of what Milton said I think, is really something to keep an eye on, is the functional demand for governance, cooperation, right? And yet, as he noted, okay, in the case of the DNS, yes, there was undeniably a need to do something in case a radio frequency spectrum is undeniably a need to do something. There are issue areas where you undeniably have problems of Commons and so on. were absent some governance framework, you know, you're gonna have significant problems whether there are particular spaces in the broad digital environment that also meet that criteria has not been in any way addressed in the process of going forward this proposal. So leaves you wondering exactly what is the concept of what role will be played, and how they will be responsive to that issue? Why Why does it have to be dealt with in this way? I would. addressing those issues in this setting leads to the deadlocks that killed the working group and enhanced cooperation twice, for example. These are all outstanding issues. I see more hands. So Hans, you've been waiting patiently.

Thank you, Bill. My name is Hans Klein. I'm at Georgia Tech. I'm a colleague of Milton's at School of Public Policy in Atlanta in the USA. I want to ask a big picture question put this in the context of a big picture bigger than the Internet. We're seeing a shift in general perhaps, towards saving globalization towards internationalization away from an emphasis on civil society and private governance, towards sovereignty and, and geopolitics. and International Relations rather than global economic relations. So I'm wondering if if this larger trend that we're seeing isn't manifested here and there's the details here with the Internet, because we're seeing some of the building blocks of multistakeholder ism of the Internet, like private governance is arguably in the eyes as firms are enrolled in state strategies we're seeing we're seeing private companies like Microsoft in the in the case of the of Ukraine, Microsoft is actually getting actively involved in the in the in the international relations there in the conflict in the Ukraine.

Sorry, I'm getting a little nervous here.

This civil society which is a building block of multistakeholderism is certainly be criticized in some quarters, Russia and China have been played an important role in the destabilization of Ukraine that led to its war. So if somebody is building blocks that are the foundations of multi stakeholder ism, private governance, civil society, trade based paradigm international relations, if that's generally in challenge, Lee in the events in Ukraine, we're seeing a shift towards towards rail quality sovereignty, a geopolitics picture is that what we're seeing here in the in the case of a global digital compact is this just a manifestation of these larger trends away from globalization away from multistakeholder ism towards geopolitics and towards multilateralism?

That's my question.

Okay, that's a sufficiently juicy question in itself that I think we should go back to the panel before digging into Ziva and Eileen, and Mike's question. Anybody want to take that on the shifter when we're from globalization towards more interstate geopolitical conflicts and that driving this process impacting this process?Anriette?

Hans, I think,yes, and no, in fact, I think I think the shift is real. I agree with you. I think that shift is they're not sure that this process is actually effectively or intelligently enough. Speaking to that, which is probably why it might not succeed. I think it's a product of it, rather than in my view, a very coherent response to it.

Okay. Nigel?

Fiona might be back if she would like to go first. I thought I saw her. No.

She says she's having data cap issues because her Wi Fi is off.

Oh, no. That's the problem.

We were worried about Anriette being in South Africa with power outages. Fiona in DC has lost connections. Anyway...

There you go. it's part of the trend? Yeah, no, I mean, just two brief points. I I totally agree. I think we are seeing geo political shifts. I certainly experienced it in the UK the time I went away from the government. The geopolitical issues that are in play here are very prominent and, you know, to an extent that manifests itself in, of course, multilateral arrangements and agreements, and whatever but at the same time, you know, and I know sometimes we can't go back and use the pandemic as our only example. But, you know, it did show there that, you know, we're all in this bucket together, so to speak, and the less stakeholders work together, then you don't make the progress you should. We certainly experienced this in the UK and that some of the early decisions, perhaps, were not as good as some of the major decisions, when stakeholders and experts were involved. So, I think we're in two different shifts, and it'll be interesting to see how the AI the governance of the AI, works out in this in this context, whether it's going to be like climate change, or whether it's going to be like some other book.

Thanks. Well, I certainly think that the trend towards more geopolitical conflict in the Internet space is going to sharply limit what can be achieved in a Digital Cooperation Forum to put it mildly, but that's my own view. Siva, you wanted to speak.

Siva. can hear me?

Yes. Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes, yes. Hi.

Okay. The central and most fundamental debate...

Siva, could you say who you are and where you are?

Yeah. Okay. I'm Sivabramanian from India. I've been a participant in Internet governance for a long time. The central debate about Internet governance so far has been multi lateral. Versus multi stakeholder processes and what was distinctive about the multi stakeholder process of candidates participating on the accessible governance process whereby decisions are made openly and this distinction is what separated the multi stakeholder process from the multilateral process and governments in the multilateral process initially responded by completely ignoring the multi stakeholder process then by coming into the process with from an elevated ground visibly and invisibly and off late I think the conflict is reconciled for the worse by making the distinction between multilateral process and the multi stakeholder process completely disappear. I met Internet leader at the ICANN meeting, who was ruminating and said, ICANN, that symbolizes the multi stakeholder process and in some sense, works very differently now than years ago, our process of managing 100 and $15 million with 150 staff it has become bureaucratic. This is the greatest danger for the multi stakeholder process in that time, almost becomes like a government like process. And it's easier for the multilateral process to capture the multi stakeholder process. They don't have to worry about multilateral or multi stakeholder both are going to be the same. Is that good reading?

Or Thank you sir. By the way I see that hands. You can lower your hands after your intervene. Yo, let's take one more and then we'll come back to the group, to let Fiona get her bearings here. Eileen, you want to go ahead.

Eileen Donahan, based at Stanford and it is great to see so many faces from the past. I want to go back to some of the comments at the top two different insights. Fiona, your point about terminology, and it being part of the problem here, and what do people mean by the Internet governance or are we really taught or some people are talking about governance of the global digital ecosystem, sort of writ large, digitized society. Anriette,, you sort of said that it's everything, and different people are talking about different things. I think that several people, Milton brought this up, if we're talking about the inner technical interoperability standards that create the network of networks that made sense to have multistakeholder. The debates that are happening now at the UN are that a part of this process are more about what's happening on the Internet. It's not u, this that original distinction with Vint Cerf and everybody. And, and those things are inherently more political. They're not, you know, merit based things and there's wide disagreement. And so I think also to Aaron Riyadh's point at the top a decade ago, earlier days, we were focused more on the benefits of the Internet and connecting everybody and now there is so much emphasis on risk and again that that points us more to a role for states as certainly compared to the technical community, and even in the civil society community because there's a sense that states are responsible for providing security and that this is digital is now society. writ large. And so states are feeling more empowered to jump into that conversation. And I think those two things are happening at the same time and that's a big part of why the center of the multilateral system is feeling more energized to have this be stay focused. I very worried about that, though. For another reason that that Henrique mentioned you talked about, the ideal is in you know, greater participation is the only way you have good outcomes. And even though by going to the UN you may be getting more governments involved. There's no question you are losing the voices of civil society and citizens, because there's sort of a democracy deficit at the UN itself because it's so state focused, and there is no real vehicle for incorporating citizen voices. So I think that's a real problem with this move. And my sense is that civil society has been hoping to bring multi stakeholder process to the entirety of Internet governance or governance of digital society, not just the DNS level kind of processes. And that is what is probably could be lost in this process. All that said, I still think it's going to end up with a high level of generality. Maybe kind of Much Ado About Nothing. I'm not sure where it goes, because I'm not sure the states can decide anything more significant and have consensus anyway.

Eileen, certainly when you were ambassador I think you experienced the fact that governments don't necessarily agree on these things. So the fact that we shift from governance of, to governance on, that there may be demand for discussion, doesn't mean there's going to be greater ability to generate outcomes. Anyway. We've got Fiona back, Fiona. Would you like to jump in?

Sure. I'm sorry for that. I was having some connection problems here at my house. So I think I'm just listening to aliens comments, and look, there's a lot of people on this call that have worked on various aspects of these issues for a long time and have lots of different opinions. But I will just flag that this whole idea of governance of the Internet and governance on the Internet was a theme that was like ages ago, I kind of want to say Bertrand kind of claimed it, but I don't know who came up with the theory of these divisions or Bill telling me no, I'm not quite sure

Vint Cerf, he did a paper with Max, {inaudible), and somebody else.

A lot of people have talked about it and written about it. But I will just say that, when I was at NTA, we flagged this as an issue and a challenge to say ask the question, could the governance on the Internet problems be resolved or addressed through multi stakeholder processes, and at NTIA during that cycle, we actually tried, right? We held a bunch of multi stakeholder processes on privacy and cybersecurity, who were trying to actually live this domestically as well as preaching internationally. And you know, working through the ICANN system, so I don't agree necessarily with Eileen that governance on the Internet mean states have more to say or these issues can't be resolved in a multi stakeholder format. I don't think people will have been incentivized to actually participate or solve the problems. And this goes back to the question about the IGF+. You know, if you have a stakeholder community if you have all these places where people get together and talk about them, why are we actually getting problems resolved in an IGF environment and IGF plus environment? I have zero faith that a conversation in New York where geopolitics will take over the issue will bring any solution to any of these issues. I have zero faith that you know, and this is saying a lot given the fact that I negotiated a lot of these principles. You know, implementation of these principles doesn't actually happen at a member state level. So it doesn't resolve the problem. So I don't necessarily feel like you know, shifting the conversation to a multilateral framework, which is, which sort of gives a nod to multistakeholder but completely undermines multistakeholder as the way to solve the problem.

Just let me be clear, I'm not I wanted make sure nobody thinks that's what I think I'm saying that's what I'm worried about. And I wholeheartedly agree with you it should be the real ideal is have multistakeholder process deals with all these levels. But I think the dynamic is that the it's empowering states to think they play a bigger role and that's why that direction.

And I think it's not I mean, I think it's all states I mean, I think Western democracies have kind of fallen into this as well. So I guess the bigger question I go back to is, why is the IGF not solving these problems? Why are we not shifting to an IGF Plus model? I don't I don't think this global digital compact conversation and a global digital forum is going to shift us away that way.

There's want to get an author and picking up Siva's question about the blurring, the bureaucratization of multistakeholder, and the blurring of these different mechanisms. Nigel or Anriette, anybody?

I just had one very well, two very quick points because we've got other questioners, I mean, I fully agree this, this this, this, this is a real difficulty and we are seeing this shift and I think Eileen, you know, captured that this is happening. And I think we as governments, you know, have to take some responsibility here. We have to, you know, we have to stand up and be counted. Something that I would love to say in the ITU Council this coming July and I probably won't say at all, but, you know, we can't go around calling the ITU in any sense multi stakeholder, if they don't allow stakeholders into the room when they're discussing Internet public policy issues. It just doesn't wash. And we have to be honest about this. And it's the same in the in the Global Digital Cooperation Forum and when I heard that, you know, this tripartite agreement that somehow stakeholders are going to be allowed to set the agenda, but then not discuss what's on the agenda. I mean, the this this is, you know, this taking me back to the 1970s and early 1980s in governments when, you know, we put out consultation documents and never listened to, or never really read what came in, but we have consulted from you, dear boy, you know, we have consulted, but, you know, we can't we can't allow this to happen

Thanks, Nigel. Anriette, then we'll go to a last question from Mike.

I mean, maybe not, not a response, but just Nigel, not to disagree with you, but I don't want to not everything can be multi stakeholder. When we looking at accountability of states and holding states accountable, as the duty bearers for upholding and promoting human rights. And we need to be able to do that, you know, as non state actors, as citizens, we have to be able to do that. And similarly states have agreed to the GG norms on responsible behavior in cyberspace. We need to hold them accountable. Similarly, we need to be able to hold corporations accountable. So I think that multi stakeholder processes are a very, very important part of the whole ecosystem. But the ecosystem is more complex than that. And once we look at accountability for specific roles and responsibilities, the multi stakeholder processes are part of that, but it should never actually I feel dilute the specific capabilities of states specific accountabilities of corporations or other actors who have specific roles and responsibilities.

Thanks Anriette. Mike, you've been waiting patiently. So you get the last question before we we shut down the show. So go ahead.

Lloyd Bentsen, our former Treasury Secretary, used to say, Never take the last question. And this may be the worst one because it's the hardest one. It's really the third elephant to add to Milton's list. And that is that it's not just that foreign governments disagree. In each government you'll have three or four agencies all thinking they're in charge of an issue, all pulling in different directions. And the worst thing is each of those government agencies will go to separate UN organizations and argue their case. And so my question for you is whether we might see some progress on that problem. Is there something that gudi are is as a former prime minister could do to get governments to coalesce? Just to take one issue? You talk about online copyright, you've got all the librarians and the culture ministers going off to UNESCO, arguing for more free fair use, and you have all the content holders and patent and trademark agencies running off to WIPO going in just the opposite direction. So is there any reason we could be optimistic about getting more coherent answers from each government? And is there any government you think has actually done a better job of this? Because it seems that it's getting worse and worse, not better and better.

That's fine. But I want to come back on that one from the panel. I

I could speak to my own experience. And Eileen, a former anbassador is on, I think there's a current State Department colleague that's on. I will just offer that, when I first started doing my job at NTIA in 2000, there were three agencies or departments that were kind of critical to the work that I worked on and getting agreement amongst those three departments was challenging enough sometimes. And the White House would convene a meeting to resolve issues if needed, and one of those agencies was independent and not even part of the executive branch. For those of you familiar with the US system, when I left the government, I think no meeting had less than 18 agencies at the table. So Mike, I unfortunately do not see that getting any better going forward. I've been a big proponent for a long time, at least in the US system of trying to reconcile this and actually do some mergers and recreate some or create some new departments and agencies. Everyone always tells me that's too big of an ask. And it's too difficult. And it's complicated and compounded by the fact that different congressional committees oversee the existing groups. So I will just say that that is actually only gotten worse since my time in government, at least over the course of my 20 years there but others and other governments might have used and I don't know if Eileen is on and I think I saw Justin on is currently in US government. Maybe he can't comment, but I don't see that getting better. Like,

I know we want to talk about the seven or eight different courts and judges who then get involved too. Thanks.

Bill, can I just jump in quickly to respond to I think that's a brilliant example, Mike, and I think that's what why I'm not convinced that the GDC process has done its homework adequately, because they are you in agreement on copyright. And as you say, there are different ones in different institutions. And they're being used. At national level. I've worked myself on copyright legislation in South Africa to produce which is very pro open content and access to knowledge which introduced fair use, because it's a good example from the US and the EU has been lobbying my government to take that out of our copyright legislation. So I think that there's a lot of this happening already in the background, the UN is involved. And I think that that there is a need for common principles. Yes. But approaching it at this very sort of big picture overarching way without actually looking at the nuts and bolts that have been in place for the last 2020 odd years is just going to result in one more parallel process. Lots of noise and not necessarily achieving any positive results and noises bad and all this this will be my last comment bow noise for me in this space is bad because I think there are fundamental problems, digital inequality being in my view, the greatest one, and I think that these processes detract attention of governments from dealing with those basic problems.And that's not helpful.

Nigel, did you want to say anything?

No. I'm alright.

Well, then, we were out of time. So I want to thank everybody for a very interesting discussion. I guess my own view is that bottom line, the irrespective of anything we talked about here, they are working on a issue paper over the summer that will be presented to the ministerial meeting in September. And I'm hopeful that in the time between now and then that will be expressions of views or raising concerns about exactly how this will be done so that maybe those might be taken on board. Although it's not clear how I've seen no indication of any contention that have real consultation and take onboard inputs from the global community about this. Hopefully, we don't end up with just another entry into the cabinet of forgotten un documents. And actually, what what is produced ends up being useful in some manner, whether we have a a forum or some other kind of processes to engage governments more than they have been so far, and at the same time, preserve the space for the IGF to serve its unique role that can't be reproduced through an inter governmental mechanism. So I stopped there. Thank you all again, and I turned to Eli.

Eli, would you like to close?

Thank you. Thank you very much. This was a an important topic. A great panel. An excellent discussion of the six or so bullet points that I set in the beginning. I was satisfied to hear about five of them. The one that I'm still listening to and hope to learn is what's the private sectors, the tech industry the infrastructure providers, the innovators, what is their perspective on all this? So they are affected? And so I'd like to thank the organizers who did a fabulous job. Bill Drake, who organized this and conceived it and introduced it and let it and Jason backwards who toiled in the background to make all of this technically possible and are administratively possible. So thank you very much, Bill. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, panel. And thank you, audience, talk to you next.

What is next? What is next this summer in the North during the fall?

We're taking a winter break.

And we'll go from there. Okay, all right. Thanks everybody.