[governance] ICANN - Request for Proposals for IndependentEvaluator for GNSO Review

[Milton Mueller]

This is not just an "ICANN" issue but a fundamental issue affecting the future of multi-stakeholderism in Internet governance. I understand how the arcana of ICANN-related structures can be boring or irritating to the (much larger) weight of the civil society groups involved in IG. 

But let me try to describe the issue in a way that illustrates its larger significance: 

The At Large was an attempt to create an open, accountable, global governance structure for the Internet based entirely on what we now call civil society. That is, it would be constituted by "individual" members - not countries, not regions, not corporatist functional constituencies, but individuals qua individuals. Cyber-citizens if you will.  
The results of that experiment are important. If that experiment fails, so be it. Let's draw the necessary conclusions and come up with better arrangements. But if the experiment was sabotaged and/or never allowed to exist, then shame on us for letting it happen. 

Beyond that, Wolfgang makes some very important and correct observations:

>>> Wolfgang Kleinwächter <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> 12/21/2005 11:47:07 AM >>>
>Now three years have gone without any single RALO and nobody makes 
>noise, not the ICANN Baord, not the ALAC, not other ICANN constituencies 
>and no individual members. 

NCUC and [some] ALAC members have discussed this at length, and boy have we generated some "noise." The problem is that a small core of the ALAC group has no larger concept of civil society and no interest in anything but protecting their very tiny perqs. Therefore they resist any structural changes and seek to prolong the current structure as far as possible. ALAC members get their airfare paid and ALAC has privileged access to ICANN resources. 

For NCUC and others outside of ALAC to "make noise" about it is a no-win proposition. It will look as if we are trying to compete with or destroy another part of ICANN, one that we usually agree with on substantive issues. 

>Roberto announced in Mar del Plata (March 2005) , that they will undertake 
>a last effort until the end of 2005. "Give as nine moths more" was his reply. 
>Now we have nearly January 2006 and three months more until Wellington. ....
 
Unfortunately, Roberto (Gaetano) is a big part of the problem here. He is hostile to true democracy and very privileged by the current system. This situation illustrates the most serious danger affecting civil society participation in international institutions: the danger of co-optation. Once these privileged "representatives" of CS are ensconced into positions of resources and authority without any institutional mechanisms for removing them or making them accountable, it is almost impossible to dislodge them. 



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