[governance] oversight

[wcurrie at apc.org]

yes, but that does not mean that civil society should not engage with what
that continued internationalisation of ICANN should mean in practice.

There is a contradiction between the NTIA, State Department, and Congress
resolutions, which do not provide for the internationalisation of ICANN in
any substantial manner and the Argentina proposal which does talk about
the continued internationalisation of ICANN. So we should be able to call
the USG on this contradiction by making clear what we understand by the
internationalisation of ICANN, i.e. that no single country should have a
pre-eminent role in relation to ICANN and ICANN should be transformed into
a multi-stakeholder body, not remain a private sector-dominated body and
so on. And set up a mechanism to negotiate this, i.e. not simply accept
USG, ISOC and ICANN's understanding of the Argentina proposal.

At this stage, the choice is between leaving things as they are - ICANN
remaining under US control and some vague commitment to internationalise
ICANN in some future non-specific way and date, or engaging with the
opening created by the WSIS negotiations to push for specific commitments
and processes for separating ICANN out from US control and
internationalising it. The EU proposal is also part of this dynamic in
that the proposal for the new co-operation model makes two points on
oversight:

1. it should not replace existing mechanisms or institutions, but should
build on the existing structures of Internet Governance

2.and provide an international government involvement at the level of
principles over the following naming, numbering and addressing-related
matters, i.e. IP number allocation, the procedures for changing the root
zone file, an arbitration and dispute resolution mechanism based on
international law and rules for the DNS system.

This can be read as implying the internationalisation of ICANN, especially
as no new structure of governance is being proposed, with a strengthening
of the role of governments. Which seems to be not that different from the
Argentine proposal -'The reinforcement of the role of Governments in ICANN
decision making with regard to relevant Internet public policy issues'.

So either way we have to engage with the issue of the internationalisation
of ICANN and under what conditions it should take place - from a civil
society perspective - which means having a view on what the role of
governmnets in ICANN should be but also what the role of civil society
should be as well as the issue of arbitration and dispute resolution
mechanisms and other issues. A lot has been said about this in the civil
society inputs to prepcom 3 and on this list. What i am saying is that it
is time to consolidate this thinking into a text that can have an impact
on the balance of forces in the resumed prepcom and we need to have an
efficient way of doing this quickly: hence the proposal for a drafting
group that can produce the text and get comment on it from the list within
the next ten days - so that it is ready by Friday 4 November for insertion
into the resumed prepcom process.

willie

> wcurrie at apc.org wrote:
>
>>hi
>>It is interesting that USG spoke in favour of the Argentinian proposal
at
>>Prep-Com 3 when it contains reference to:
>>The continued internationalization of ICANN and its functions;
> The point is that the US has a different perception of this, and so does
ICANN (and ISOC and...), of course. For them ICANN is already in this
process and you do not need to change anything for it to develop further
("evolution"!). Arguments like the CEO is an Australian and several others
of the same sort. To say we see a "continued
> internationalization" of ICANN is to agree with this US view. Do we want
this?
>
> During Prepcom 3 it was clear ISOC, ICANN, the USG and some others
adopted the tactics to build a proposal formally headed by the
> Argentinians, to counteract a tendency in the EU position and the group
of "like-minded countries". I am against subscribing to it, unless we have
decided we are no longer really adhering to para 48 of the WGIG report. If
we want to take it as a basis, there is a lot of crucial rewriting to be
done.
>
>>So perhaps it would be worth putting something concrete down for the
>> Tunis
>>Prep-Com as to how this would work in practice over what timeline.
> I think that CS might be going in the wrong direction if it takes for
granted that the US is willing to accept any non-cosmetic modification in
the current ICANN arrangement. It is clear congress and the federal
government will be united against touching ICANN and the current legal
arrangement in any way. We will be losing time here and playing into its
hands.
>
> Unless this is what current CS de facto leadership (the most regular and
dedicated participants of the debate) wants... The view trying to
prevail seems to be now: let us do a forum, hope the UN agrees to create a
WG to build it, and hope it will have legitimacy (not to speak of adequate
pluralist representation, which we are not discussing either) and will be
heard by everyone etc etc, and leave the oversight question to an
"evolutionary" process...
>
> I agree with the forum, of course, but I do not agree with leaving
things as they are or hoping for "evolution in the right direction" (which
one?) regarding oversight. Besides, we keep forgeting we have dozens of
other governance components CS keeps leaving aside or just mentioning
superficially, and which badly need international
coordination.
>
> frt rgds
>
> --c.a.
>
>
>





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