[governance] oversight

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

I generally disagree with the notion that there should be any binding  
authority by governments over ICANN, hence my unwillingness to use  
the word 'oversight'.

I think there should be full stakeholder participation within ICANN,  
the gadfly external public opinion pressure from the Forum, the  
ability for appeal (probably mutually binding) to a predefined MSH  
mechanism, and audit process that the board of ICANN must deal with  
responsibly.

While the term oversight can be stretched to include such soft  
instruments and the strengthening of organizational/corporate  
governance, i think that the rest of the baggage that the term  
oversight carries is problematic and should be avoided.

thanks
a.

On 13 okt 2005, at 10.18, Carlos Afonso wrote:

> Milton Mueller wrote:
>
>
>> Avri:
>> [...]
>> But one can also think of "oversight" as a set of enforceable rules
>> regulating ICANN. And for those rules to be truly enforceable, a
>> significant number of the world's governments have to agree on  
>> them. How
>> else will they come about and obtain any binding authority over  
>> ICANN?
>>
>> If properly defined, these rules can constrain governments just as  
>> much
>> as they constrain ICANN. I.e., they might say that ICANN can be  
>> reversed
>> or checked only according to certain procedures and only in the
>> following areas: x,y,z.
>>
>>
>>
> I understand this is generally the underlying vision of oversight  
> the CS
> caucus works with.
>
>
>> I think we would emphatically agree that the nature of these rules  
>> must
>> be defined by civil society and private sector, not just  
>> governments. In
>> other words, the concept of "oversight" has to be conceived in a way
>> that makes its purpose _the protection of the rights of the general
>> population of Internet users and suppliers_, not simply a matter of
>> giving governments their pound of flesh qua governments.
>>
>>
>>
> I agree that any definition of rules must result from a pluralist
> process, of course, but not just under the economists' vision of
> consumers and suppliers.
>
>
>> While the immediate threat is national governments, veterans of ICANN
>> can only repeat their warnings that ICANN itself can be captured,  
>> can be
>> indifferent to users and individual rights, can ignore its own stated
>> procedures, etc., etc. ICANN now seems nice only by comparison to
>> traditional intergovernmental processes. And ICANN's "niceness"  
>> has been
>> greatly enhanced by the threat of WSIS, who knows what will happen  
>> once
>> that threat is gone and it is cut loose. So prima facie, there is  
>> a need
>> for ICANN "oversight."
>>
>>
>>
> On this, an interesting story: in the ITU Americas event in Salvador,
> ITU reps as usual tried to present the organization as an essential
> player in a new global governance mechanism. But the rep of one of the
> largest multinational telcos (Telefónica) proposed that nothing be
> changed in the current mechanisms of governance of the logical
> infrastructure (ie., the ICANN system). There are many examples like
> this in which global agencies' bureaucracies acquire a life of their
> own... There are already signals this is happening within ICANN as  
> well
> -- we can see this in the ICANN meetings in which major business 
> stakeholders (the TLD traders) raise their protests against the
> organization.
>
> rgds
>
> --c.a.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance
>
>


_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance at lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance