[governance] oversight

[Danny Butt]

Hi Laina

With "GAC power" I was making reference to the proposals for  
strengthening GAC oversight or making a GAC-like oversight body,  
which has been floated a few times by different government entities,  
and these quickly produce the side-effect squabbles on this list  
about whether/how much government input is appropriate, with the  
"Let's be realistic, governments will be involved" on the one side  
and "Let's be realistic, the Internet works because governments  
aren't involved (except one)" on the other side and some points in  
between. I think this is the disagreement Jeanette mentioned that we  
are not likely to resolve, I think it gets more airtime than is  
useful for us, and I don't think it builds strength in our positions.

My interpretation of Jeanette's suggestion is that for now we could  
park the issue of GAC/governments in our statements, with "we  
understand that there are a number of views within CS and the  
internet community generally on the role of governments in the  
internet governance process - we reiterate that these must be  
assessed according to WSIS principles of [multistakeholder/access/ 
people-centred/ whatever agreed language]."

Meanwhile, we get on with the other work, especially Jeanette's  
suggestions of

> *ICANN reform with the goal of multi-stakeholder composition
> *host country agreement
> *independent appeals body
>
> What we havn't discussed yet is an auditing function that could  
> cover in
> addition to finances also other parts of ICANN's tasks and work.

Then according to the processes discussed previously about enabling  
quicker responses, statements can be made by reps when Governments  
put forward suggestions (as they are doing), with CS reps pointing  
out the parts which don't work or are contrary to those principles.  
Looking at the proposals so far the flaws are usually reasonably  
obvious and I think it would be a lot easier for us to agree on those  
than to try and concoct an agreed model, which in my view not that  
many people are going to take much notice of anyway. This is because,  
as the technical community always say, the people doing the work  
should define the structure.  Put it this way, if WGIG's proposals  
were basically ignored by some governments, I don't know if ours will  
fare any better. So in the interests of clarifying the scope of the  
CS docs, and diplomacy, I prefer a constructive/propositional  
approach to non-gov reform, and a critical/responsive approach to  
proposals involving governments.

Regards,

Danny




--
http://www.dannybutt.net
On 13/10/2005, at 12:47 PM, Laina Raveendran Greene wrote:

> I think Danny, perhaps your suggestion could possibly involve  
> seeing how GAC
> can function better to "fix" what some gov may not be happy with, with
> inputs from multistakholders on its reform of course ...or are we  
> talking
> about creating something new.
>

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