[governance] Caucus Position on Oversight?

[Laina Raveendran Greene]

I tend to agree with Avri that we need to be sure what we are fixing.
Although I do feel that oversight by US is the only issue here. ICANN is
controversial to many actors, not just governments, as they do not feel it
to be truly "multistakeholder", with clear transparency and legitimacy. 

If you recall, the Dept of Commerce under Ira Magaziner did try to "give
over" oversight by calling for the Green Paper and White Paper process of
consultation from all actors around the world, including gov. For those of
you involved then, you will recall ITU, EU, some Asian governments, etc were
all active during that "multistakeholder" process. We also had the
International Forum for the White Paper process which tried to bring the
process even further to develop clear models (4 were finally submitted
through the process), but in the end things were hijacked by vested
interests lobbying in DC, and also using the argument that no good
alternative existed from any of these models proposed. All the clear
principles of the White Paper on accountability, legitimacy, checks and
balances through the at-large group etc were hijacked in the end through the
closed process of coming up with ICANN. Many are still not implemented.

Yes, things need to be done to fix this oversight issue by the US but as you
can see, this issue was discussed as way back as 1996 onwards and involves
more than this. ICANN started on the wrong foot i.e. without clear
legitimacy and mandate from the open consultative process. (Resurrecting the
White Paper will show you some of the history to what the Dept of Commerce
were themselves proposing back then and the models the rest of the world
proposed as solutions. )Not trying to defend the US, it is still worthwhile
keeping in mind though that it was the US who initiated the process of
internationalising their oversight function in the first place back in 1996.


In any case, until there is a clear and better alternative, the US can
continue to use that as the excuse for not doing anything more than it has
done with ICANN not being perfect either. Trying to fix what is not working
in ICANN could help allay some of the concerns of gov and other actors who
feel the ICANN is not working too. How we do this with ICANN willing to do
this, is another matter and we could use WSIS to put pressure on US to
reform ICANN. Just a thought. 

Whatever it is, we need to understand the ramifications of any solution
adopted. Working out solutions for how this should work will take time (we
will definitely not solve this here at PrepCom 3). I agree with WGIG that
clear mandate and timeline to have a WG to ensure this happens will be more
constructive to help move things forward.

Laina

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
[mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 12:21 AM
To: Governance Governance Caucus
Subject: Re: [governance] Caucus Position on Oversight?


On 24 sep 2005, at 23.23, Ian Peter wrote:

> The only other situation likely to be simple enough to satisfy would 
> be a "more power to GAC" one. Let GAC have a right of veto on root 
> zone policy issues. I know its not ideal to everyone, but is it more 
> acceptable than nothing happening or some ridiculous government 
> top-heavy structure being established for this purpose?
>

I don't think one has to go as far as giving the GAC a veto.

I think there are intermediate steps  that could achieve a similar effect.
e.g. give the GAC, and some CS oriented ICAN  entity, perhaps the ALAC, or
something with wider inclusion of users or at least domain holders, seat(s)
on the board and give the GAC the ability to cause a full review of any
ccTLD (and perhaps other issues related to national policies though this is
somewhat more difficult to define) decision.

what I do agree with is the proposition that ICANN could go a long way to
having a greater degree of multistakeholder control, and that this needs to
be achieved during the year approaching the end of the MOU, when one can
only hope that the US will live up to its obligation to set the mature and
self regulating organization free.

this is, btw, implicit in my understanding of option 2, as i will argue
during the Tuesday forum on the issue.

a.




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