[governance] oversight

[Lee McKnight]

Wolfgang,

You seem to assume Milton and the rest of us expect a framework convention for the Internet would work the same as prior framework conventions, ie be state-led.

I agree that would be dangerous and unacceptable.  A multistakeholder-led and balanced framework convention on the other hand, would be a whole new beast.

Probably, it would have to be at least partially outside the state-centric UN system.

Even conceding that point will of course be difficult, but if that is not conceded then I for one definitely don;t want to go to that party (again and again and again - there are no easy fixes here). 

There will be interim patches and fixes and upgrades along the way, but definitely it would be dangerous to rush into a new international regime for the Internet. 

Lee

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile

>>> Wolfgang Kleinwächter <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> 10/15/2005 6:34 AM >>>
Milton:
>>Is not a governmental council more dangerous within ICANN than outside it?

Wolfgang:
>The GAC reform would include that the GAC constitutes an own legal basis,
>outside of the ICANN bylaws but linked to ICANN via a MoU, which could
>be part of the ICANN bylaws.

Mitlton:
So even if this happens, we are talking about re-negotiating the role(s) of governments in ICANN. And does this not raise all the same issues as the EU-proposed Council?

Wolfgang:
My problem with the EU proposal is that the borderline between "the level of principle" and the " day to day operation" is unclear. If the "level of principle" means, dealing with the TOP 16 list and creating general frameworks "on the level of principle",  this would be not only okay for me, I think this is needed, in particular if it comes to non-ICANN issues. But if I take the story of .eu anf the "heavy legislation" (and the debate before the Directive was adopted) I feel rather uncomfortable with such a procedure. In this case, the "level of principle" does interfere rather deep into the day to day operations. Ask EURID people about their experiences.That all stakeholder - including governments - have to have a channel, is without any doubt. Nobody challenges this. The question is the detail: the procedure, the basic structure (network vs. hierarchiy) etc. 
 
My criticism with your framework convention is driven by the same argument: A heavy inter-governmental cloud over the Internet is 
a. difficult to achieve (it has to be negotiated and if 15 western European countries need five years to agree on a legislation for one single and simple issue like  .eu, you can speculate how long this will lastif 190+ UN member states are involved)  and
b. risky because too much rain can come from the sky which will set the Internet on the gorund under water.
 
To have an intergovernmental council (for the TOP 16 list, including ICANN issues) with a "Private Sector Advisory Committee" (PSAC) and an "Civil Society Advisory Committee" (CSAC), both with qualified voting rights for issues which have relevance for the private sector and civil society (users)  would be much better. To internationalize the authorization function of the publication of zone files in the root is a bad idea. Here I agree with Carl Bildt. USG should push ICANN to crate the condition that this can be fully privatized. Anycast, DNSSec etc are steps in the right direction.  More is needed. 
Best
 
wolfgang
 
 

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