AW: AW: [governance] host country agreements considered dangerous

Wed Aug 2 04:05:20 EDT 2006

Michael:
But are IOC and FIFA -- which have had to deal with corruption problems --really the sort of models we want?

Wolfgang:
That is why a labeled both organisations as "bad cases" in my statement. Legally the FIFA is an interesting example, but if you compare the level of arrogance between FIFA and ICANN, FIFA needs no overtime and penalty shoot out to win. 

On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Wolfgang Kleinwächter wrote:

> A host agreement does not solve the problem. It creates also some legal difficulties. While the US government acts as a subject under international law, ICANN is not a subject under internaitonal law.
>
> For me it makes not sense to look for a "model" like the "Internaitonal Red Cross", the "International Olympic Committee" or the FIFA, the world soccer organisation. There is no model, ICANN itself is (or can become) the "model" for a new subject in international politics, a hybrid organisation which allows both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders input according to specific procedures. The only way forward is to improve the relevant procedures and policy development processes in a transparent and bottom up way so that this is so attractiv and effective that all other solutions (from governmental take over until further privatization) would be seen by a majority of stakeholder as a "step backwards". Unfortunately ICANN missed a lot of chances to demonstrate that it represent this new quality of a truely multistakeholder organisation of the 21st century so far. It is late now but not too late.
>
> BTW, the FIFA, which organizes the World Championship and attracts with more than 4 billion fans more people in the world than we have Internet users today is registered under the Swiss Civil Code (Article 60 ff.) and headquartered in Zürich. There is no MoU with the Swiss government. FIFA respects the national jurisdiction of Switzerland but has nearly nothing to do with the country. FIFA enters into agreements with host countries and national governments - like the German government did recently during the World Cup in June/July 2006 - hand over to FIFA a number of responsibilities, work together with FIFA if it comes to security issues and accept minimum standards set by FIFA for organizing the Championship. Even more, governmental officials - from presidents to prime ministers - are accepting invitations to sit in a FIFA lounge and are proud to be close to the "heros" of the game.
>
> The IOC has  developed a similar "reputation" which is accepted by governments and no government intervenes into the internal affairs of FIFA and IOC. The problem, why this are "bad cases" is that both FIFA and IOC are totally intransparent, undemocratic and they do not have any accountability mechanism. IOC members are the "Lord of the Rings" and it needs big scandals and criminal behaviour to get rid of IOC members. After the Samaranch Scandal around the Salt Lake City Winter Games the US Congress organized a hearing and invited IOC members, which did appear at the Hill. Legally this was an extraordinary case that a US parliament intervened into the business of a Swiss based NGO, but it was related to a US problem and the SLC winter games.
>
> But anyhow as I said above, there is no model. ICANN is the model and the only way forward is to improve and to implement the basic principles (and/or) to add more principles, as proposed, inter alia, by Milton in his reply to the NTIA Inquiry.
>
> Best wishes
>
> wolfgang
>
> ________________________________
>
> Von: Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law [mailto:froomkin at law.miami.edu]
> Gesendet: Di 01.08.2006 18:04
> An: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Betreff: [governance] host country agreements considered dangerous
>
>
>
> I wish someone would explain to me in simple words why on earth one would
> want ICANN to have the sort of status implied by a host country agreement.
>
> The history of ICANN is replete with examples of its misbehavior, and lack
> of budget discipline.  It suffers deeply from a lack of accountability.
> Giving it protection from law -- which is what host country agreements
> mostly do -- hardly seems like the right reaction unless we first craft an
> alternate accountability mechanism.
>
> Has everyone forgotten that until the US Government stopped it by amending
> the MoU, ICANN was refusing to process zone file changes for ccTLDs that
> had not signed agreements promising to obey ICANN, pay its levies, and
> allowing ICANN to raise the fees by 15% per year?
>
> Adult supervision is essential.  Or at least the threat of it.
>
> I fully understand why people might think the current arrangement is
> deficient: the US has been an erratic steward at best, and the current
> administration does not inspure trust.  But the alterantive being proposed
> does not seem any better, and in fact is worse in that if things go badly
> wrong at ICANN some day there will be darn little we can do about it.
>
> --
> http://www.icannwatch.org   Personal Blog: http://www.discourse.net
> A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin at law.tm
> U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
> +1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
>                        -->It's warm here.<--
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--
http://www.icannwatch.org   Personal Blog: http://www.discourse.net
A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin at law.tm
U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
+1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
                        -->It's warm here.<--

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