[governance] Emergency resolution on.xxx recall

[Milton Mueller]

>>> <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> 08/17/05 11:18 PM >>>
>On my reading, ICANN can't win on this one. 

Depends on who you mean by "ICANN." If you mean Twomey and company, you
may be right. If you mean by "ICANN" a multistakeholder governance
process in which civil society, private sector and governments have at
least nominally equal status, I see a very clear way for that to win.
Let's call ICANN's mgmt ICANN-T (for Twomey) and the ms governance
process ICANN-We for a moment....

>If ICANN chooses not to comply with
>GAC or USG requests on this issue, it is opening itself 
>up to further calls from governments in the WSIS 
>context - with USG on their side this time - for
>greater government control of ICANN. 

ICANN-T has already complied with Commerce Dept and GAC chair's request
for a delay. The issue now is what happens at the end of the delay.
Twomey is basically a politician with few or no principles at stake
here, so you're right, it presents him with a quandary. But all that
means is that he will take the path of least resistance. So if anti-.xxx
governments flex the most muscle, he will try to kill it. And if CS
people offer him rationalizations and make it clear that there will be
no strong objections if he does, that outcome is a foregone conclusion.


If on the other hand WE flex some muscle, even if we seem to be
98-pound weaklings, we at least have a chance of making him and the
Board think twice. I don't accept your defeatism ("The one thing that is
for sure is that ICANN will not base its decisions on what you or I
think"). CS and PS can make quite a bit of noise in ICANN. Furthermore,
there are many people in the USG, not least the Commerce Dept. officials
such as Gallagher - who told the .xxx applicants they were ok with it
prior to Sampson's arrival - who would be relieved if ICANN didn't
reverse itself. 

The best way for ICANN-W to survive this process is to give the govts a
month to vent, while calmly but firmly explaining why ICANN made the
decision and why it's a bad idea to go back on it now, and why gTLD
additions should not be turned into political footballs. And explain to
them that if they want to change the way ICANN relates to governments,
they have to do it right, i.e., by negotiating a treaty agreement among
themselves, not by leaping at tempting political targets. 

>If ICANN complies with a request from GAC on the other hand, 
>it shows GAC to be a workable model for input of governmental 
>concerns that can be built on and refined.

Wrong. This is the attitude that seems to motivate Izumi and Raul, and
I thank you for putting it so clearly. But I must insist that it is
based on a fundamental misconception about what is happening. This is a
power struggle. Some of the most vocal governmental opponents of .xxx,
do not want a "workable model for input of governmental concerns." They
want direct authority over all public policy issues, which as any
clear-eyed analysis of the usage of that term reveals, means: any issue
that they think is politically important - which could be anything. Do
you think Brazil is truly cncerned about the existence of an .xxx
domain? The land of tranvestites and legal, ubiquitous street
prostitution? Give me a break. These are political opportunists seeking
an issue that can topple ICANN's PS/CS-based governance model.

>There are some fine nuances of language needed in responding, 
>but to ride roughshod over both USG and GAC's concerns at this 
>time would be suicidal.

All I am saying is that we should articulate OUR concerns. Do you think
my concerns about the power shift this represents are unimportant or
unreal? If so, make your case. If not, let's stop debating the minor
details of what degree of influence the USG vs. other countries
motivated this intervention. There are very big stakes here. 

Maybe you are not as worried as I am. Fine. Let's work on the language.
But no one can reasonably say that the first open attempt at government
censorship of the domain name space and the first open and explicit
intervention by the US Commerce Department in ICANN policy process isn't
something that requires some attention. 

--MM
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