[Chapter-delegates] Call with Chapters in advance of the ITU Plenipotentiary 2018 (18 Oct, 10:00 and 20:00 UTC)

[Richard Hill]

Please see below.

 

Thanks and best,

Richard

 

From: Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Alejandro Pisanty
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2018 22:20
To: Elizabeth Oluoch
Cc: ISOC Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Call with Chapters in advance of the ITU Plenipotentiary 2018 (18 Oct, 10:00 and 20:00 UTC)

 

Elizabeth,

 

fully agree and I again commend this approach as taken. Now is the time for us in chapters to forcefully make our basic points of view known to the national delegations that will be attending, and to make sure they continue to listen to us through the Plenipot. 

 

>RH: Agreed. However, as I’ve pointed out before, I think that we should devote at least as much energy to influencing trade negotiations, in particular because trade negotiations result in binding treaty provisions, whereas the ITU PP can at most adopt non-binding resolutions.  Recall that the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) mandates that the ccTLD will publish WHOIS data. I would not be surprised if such proposals appeared in future trade negotiations.

 

It is a long, gruelling few weeks, full of surprises and jarring violations of ground rules disguised in different ways. 

 

>RH: Could you please provide examples of violations of procedural rules?  ITU’s procedural rules are very complicated and many people don’t actually understand them. So it would be good to have actual examples of violations.

 

Secrecy in negotiations should not be allowed to hide what each delegation is doing, what principles they are actually championing and which they are hiding or openly violating. 

 

>RH: All of the proposals to the ITU-PP are publicly accessible on the ITU web site. And all the formal negotiating sessions are open to all people registered to attend PP.  Non-state actors (including ISOC) can ask to speak (but cannot take part in formal decision-making).  There are informal negotiating sessions between states that have differing views, and those are limited to the representatives of those states, but in the end the concerned states have to present their proposals in sessions that are open to all registered participants.

 

>RH: Contrast that to WTO (and other trade negotiations), where not all proposals are made public, and the negotiations are limited to state representatives who make it a point not to consult (except perhaps big business).  Had anybody seen the text of the USMCA before it was formally agreed?

 

SNIP

 

there is a lot of non-transparent politics for these elections and that the negotiations may involve trading off or becoming silent on principles. 

 

>RH: The negotiations for elections are indeed kept confidential (secret, if you wish). But the voting is secret: nobody knows who voted for which candidate. So a state can promise a vote, and fail to deliver it. So I seriously doubt that there is any real horse-trading going on. What does go on is that many states tell several candidates that they will vote for them. In my experience,  in the past, several candidates had been promised enough votes to have a majority on the first round, which is obviously impossible.

 

SNIP

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