Subject: [hrpc] re research on HR history in IETF

From: Sandra Braman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 May 2021 00:26:55 -0500

Thanks to everyone for the research recommendations and points of
information. Several different types of possible effects have been
mentioned:

- on the design of the Internet
- on those involved in design of the Internet (in a consciousness-raising
kind of way)
- on formal discourse about Internet design (in RFCs)
- on public but informal discourse about Internet design (on mailing lists,
etc.)
- on the human rights discourse external to the IETF
- on human rights (e.g., via the case studies)

There are others that might be considered (e.g., effects on those involved
in working on human rights and Internet design). The fascinating insight
from Corinne Cath's dissertation, for which we are all waiting, about the
gap between what is said publicly and what is actually believed for at
least some involved in the Internet design process is important when
thinking across this range of possible effects.

Of course discussion about human rights in the course of the Internet
design process is not new -- it was already a feature of the RFCs by the
early 1970s. ("The Eternal Return" is one option for a title for a journal
article that is close to completion.) Some of those who have contacted me
privately expressing an interest in future publications coming out of work
on uses of 8280 and related matters have also been interested in work
published to date, so the 8 journal articles already out there have been
bundled together in this folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zb-m37gnG6711ymwMv7s1xcoMC92SrP3?usp=sharing

Of these items, "The Framing Years" is probably the best place to start
though it wasn't the first published. The piece on "The Geopolitical vs the
Network Political" adds a useful dimension to the jurisdictional matters
this list has been discussing, etc. The RFCs turned out to be much more
fecund from the perspective of discussion of legal, policy, and political
matters in the course of technical decision-making than had been projected
when I began the analysis of the first 40 years of the process that yielded
these items (and others to come). However, I now agree with David D. Clark,
with whom the project has been discussed since before its inception, that
after the first 20 years, analysis of the RFCs themselves is less fruitful
than it was in the early years except for those items that are explicitly
on point. Unfortunately (in terms of the time it takes), because the
subjects of analysis and the terminology used to discuss those subjects are
constantly changing, inductive analysis based on full reading of the texts
is necessary for this kind of work.

The suggestion to map stages of the conversation as it moves across layers
of the Internet was particularly striking and I hope someone takes up that
work. The full panoply of suggestions for research on the effects of 8280
in particular and of the HRPC in general could come together in a great
project for someone's dissertation, as well. My current commitment is to
the couple of pieces that were offered as possible input into the draft
guidelines now under discussion; as in other work, the approach is
theoretically pluralist. Among the interesting theoretical problems to
plumb for this sociotechnical domain is the tension between the definition
of "normative" on the technical side (for the IETF, very specific things
that are required in order for the technical system to work) and on the
social side (abstract commitments expressed verbally about general
principles preferred by some).

It was sweet of Niels to offer a draft title for a draft I-D in this area,
but I will not be the person writing that draft. However, this conversation
has been extremely valuable for other purposes and again I thank you all
for it.

Sandra Braman