Re: [hrpc] Politics, representation, and the charter (was Re: HRPC recharter)

[Vittorio Bertola <[e-mail]>]

 

> Il 20/04/2023 11:41 CEST Colin Perkins <[e-mail]> ha scritto:
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> Melinda Shore said: “I think there's tremendous value in research identifying and explaining the nexus between internet protocol standards and human rights, and developing an understanding of how IETF standards might help or harm those rights. That is not the same thing as attempting to influence the development of specific documents in specific IETF working group”. I agree.
> 
I do not understand this distinction. Indeed, the very reason why this group was created was because of the feeling that the IETF was designing protocols with policy consequences without taking those consequences into account in its design choices. People are motivated to participate by the hope that the IETF will make different protocol design choices than if this effort did not exist - otherwise, why bother? It may not be a direct influence, i.e. this group telling WGs what to do, but it is indeed an influence, by writing down evaluation criteria and encouraging protocol designers to apply them and take the results into account.
 
This also explains why I am wary of expanding the charter. I think that this group has not done a good job in separating the specific policy views by its few leaders from the general policy views of multiple stakeholders around protocol design, which of course are varied and often contradictory. It seems to me that it has become a vehicle for promoting specific policy views rather than a neutral, research-based advisory mechanism.
 
As an example, the first presentation at the Yokohama meeting (apart from being unrelated with anything the IETF does) was basically devoted to examples of how to embarrass one specific political party in one specific country. Now, I am not from that country and if I were I would not be a supporter of that party, but I am sure that many IETF participants are, so I was wondering how this could ever be research or a form of useful collective advice for protocol design.
 
Perhaps I am the only one that had these perceptions, but it is hard for any group to be productive in lack of shared views of the purpose and constraints, and I think we do not have them yet.

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Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
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