[CCWG-ACCT] Definitions and the tussle (was Re: Fwd: [CCWG-Advisors] question regarding Global Public Interest)

Alan Greenberg alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Mon Dec 28 06:13:57 UTC 2015


I too was reluctant to enter this discussion. But perhaps I can 
reinforce how it is moving.

I used to think that you could not define the GPI, but you could give 
specific examples. I now am no longer sure, but still believe it 
might be interesting to try.

At the IGF in Joao Pessoa, I participated in what I thought was a 
really good discussion on defining the Global Public Interest. The 
conclusion I came to, and I think was supported by many of the 
participants, was that you could not define it, and if you did, it 
would not be of much help, for just the reasons that people in this 
thread have highlighted. The subtleties of the particular issue at 
hand will always colour the discussion, and even if you had a formal 
definition, it would not likely make everything crystal clear.

It may well be worthwhile working through a number of specific 
examples to try to better understand the issues and what influences 
the discussion in each case. And going through this exercise may well 
help us better understand what we mean by the public interest, or how 
to determine it in a particular case. But even then, reasonable 
people on both sides are likely to disagree.

No set definition will take all doubt from this deliberately fuzzy expression.

Alan

At 27/12/2015 01:58 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm sort of loathe to dive into this discussion, but I think there's a
>useful thread in here that is worth tugging on so that we can see the
>quality of the weave.
>
>My biggest worry about the phrase "the global public interest" is not
>the meaning of "global", "public", or "interest", but "the".  By
>claiming that something is or is not in _the_ global public interest,
>the definite article implies that there is such an interest (or maybe,
>such a public); that there is exactly one; and, perhaps most
>interesting, that one knows what that is.  Even if I were to grant (I
>do not, but let's say for the sake of argument) that there is a fact
>of the matter about the the interest of the global public, I cannot
>imagine how one would test a claim that something is or is not in said
>interest.
>
>The quest to come up with a definition of "the global public
>interest", therefore, is an attempt to create such a test; but it's
>really a dodge in a Wittgenstinean language-game.  Were we to unpack
>any such definition that was even widely acceptable, we'd discover
>either that some interest (or public) would be left out, or else that
>some conflict inherent in the definition would be obscured.  For the
>basic problem is that you cannot define "the global public interest"
>in a way that is all of universally acceptable, useful for the
>purposes of making tough decisions, and true.  Even apparently simple
>and obvious cases -- "It is in the global public interest for war to
>end" -- turn out to be troublesome.  For example, people fighting a
>current war are presumably doing it for some other end, so they'd only
>agree to that example statement with the implicit premise, "as long as
>my desired outcome is assured."
>
>A definition of "the global public interest" will be ever more
>troublesome the clearer it tries to be, because the list of specifics
>will start to be long.  I think our experience in working on the
>mission statement is mighty instructive, and it is at least scoped
>merely to the parts of the Internet ICANN directly touches -- whatever
>we think those are.
>
>As a consequence, I think a claim that _x_ is [not] in "the global
>public interest" is really just a way of saying, "I [don't] think _x_
>should happen."  Such a claim is part of a tussle, like the "Tussle in
>Cyberspace" described by Clark, Wroclawski, Sollins, and Braden (see
>http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1074049).  It's a nice rhetorical
>move to claim that you can define the tussle away, but you can't (at
>least, not legitimately).  I think we should be honest with ourselves
>that such definitional efforts will create wheels that do no work.
>
>Best regards,
>
>A
>
>--
>Andrew Sullivan
>ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
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