[governance] Caucus Position on Oversight?

[Lee McKnight]

Hi everyone, 

And hi Laina, been a while.

And, nice job Wolfgang reviewing how we got here, if others haven't
they should read Wolfgangs piece to remind themselves of the background.
My views medium term are close to yours, but that is not the main point
of this note.

Instead let me try to offer some advice from my stateside cheap seats
to the weary and snubbed (by governments) CS IG warrior/diplomats in
Geneva, and also to other online participants wherever you may be, both
on tactics/document preparation and on my interpretation of what's
really happening:

1) First to the Geneva crew, Avri's suggestion on how to constructively
engage while still making clear this is under procedural protest seems
like the only way to go.  Odds of the governments getting it right
without CS help are about zero, so since you are there you have an
obligation to pitch in to the extent permitted.

2) The suggestion that the commentary/suggestion document mirror the
'non-paper' -was that Ian? - also seems the easiest way to structure
things into bite size bits even diplomats might understand and be able
to use. Wolfgang's outline may be more logical but would take more
processing for the diplomats, which I don't think you or they have time
for. 

3)  If that draft cannot be brought to the point of a CS consensus
document, then it should be turned into an instant statement of
like-minded CS folks as Bill suggests.  Since we need not fall back to
that point just yet, offers of technical assistance would also be
premature, but I am sure several groups including the Internet
Governance Project could step in swiftly if needed - but that's assuming
we don't all agree on the One True Way to do oversight and manage the
forum function, which we don;t know just yet, so we can hold off on that
choice for a few days.    Someone has to start taking a stand first. 
Gee I guess that's me : )

So...

4) Jeanette's note of a few days ago on the forum function I suggest
can be the start of that piece of the doc;  this keeps things flexible
and might show to confiused or reluctant governments how new 'oversight'
functions could spin out of the Fourm if collectively agreed to, eg for
spam or some other hot-button area, but also reassure those who would
pay the bills that this is not foreordained to be a massive standing
thing, in the first instance just a lightweight occasional talk shop;

5) Then, we/you extract from Wolfgang's piece the suggestion of a
continuation of the trust-based system that we have presently for root
server management, with the removal of US gov involvement.  Govt rights
to choose what to do with their ccTLD should be explicitly acknowledged
again.  That is, the CS position is technical folks who trust each other
make the thing work and let's leave them alone to the extent possible
and not mess up the innovation engine. And the techies promise they will
listen to governments choices for their own ccTLDs, which maybe could be
put in writing via ICANN, with CS and GAC both involved in monitoring
but not touching the DNS. Full stop. 

6) finally, or firstly, as Laina and everyone else notes, it's
important to keep one;s eye on the multistakeholder process prize which
has been won so far, and lost so easily in Prepcom by a few governments
overplaying their hands.  (It's amusing to see from the cheap seats how
easily the USG went so fast from being the bad guy of IG to the champion
of global civil society's rights - and sad how my good Brazilian friends
set themselves up as the not ready for primetime global Internet poltics
players - but I digress on who's winning this hand in the poker game). 


7) So if the UN and governments don't want to play by the Internet's
rules, they don;t have to, but they don;t get to muck up the root
either. In fact they don't even get to have an oversight function since
they have just shown themselves incapable of doing so with the 'trusted'
parties consent.  Oops.

8) So the best/only face-saving outcome available for the losers of the
Prepcom poker game (they may not realize yet they have just lost, but
they have by throwing you all out of the room) and by extension Tunis,
is to get the US to bail them out (ouch!) by agreeing to a
multistakeholder study of what to do next. Since even if the USG agrees
that the process shoudl change in time, now it's not ICANN that needs to
show maturity on how to manage the net, it's the rest of the world's
diplomats showing they even understand how the current system operates,
and whom they should not antagonize in a network of networks based on
trust and voluntary consent to interconnect.  Duhhh...

9) Then in the end, in another who knows how many years, we probably
get to the point Wolfgang suggests as the logical minor change to the
actual root zone authorization system.  So get some sleep, and start
drafting tomorrow - the forecast is for heavy weather, and slow
progress!

As usual I can't offer much time beyond this note/outline, hopefully
someone else in the appropriate timezone can start putting the pieces
together amd surprise the Geneva crew with a morning present/first draft
when they get up - perhaps minus my side commentary/wiseguy remarks!

Lee

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

>>> "Laina Raveendran Greene" <laina at getit-multimedia.com> 09/24/05
6:52 PM >>>

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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