[governance] Re: In the wake of RegisterFly, is ICANN taking flight?

Tue Apr 10 01:37:13 EDT 2007

Hi Bertrand, 

>There is an important criteria to appreciate people's comments : do they
help everybody understand the issues or somebody's position better ? do they
introduce >principles that unify or principles that divide ? do they help
shape a better system, that will be more just and more efficient for
everybody ? or will they generate >more anger and opposition ?  

Yours is a very constructive approach, and we should constantly remind us of
these virtues and ideals. I think it can help a lot if each of us does
reflect on these issues while participating in this debate.

With your permission, I will add a few riders to this though. There are
always some important differences in adherences to values of what may be
construed as civility between the insiders and outsiders to a dominating
system. Many may call the Seattle WTO protests as uncivil, but to many they
represent a watershed in subaltern globalization and thus are almost sacred.
So we need to see the issues in terms of what may be called as weighted
neutrality. 

>Looking forward to substantive and constructive contributions on the real
question : what is the future institutional architecture of Internet
Governance ? and >where should it be discussed ? 

These are just the main questions we should be focusing on. 

But it is important to understand the socio-political context in which these
questions become so important.

What is called the information society is deeply impacting almost all social
structures, and in times of such far-reaching alignments it is natural that
social power struggles intensify. It is a natural phenomenon, and we need
not self-delude ourselves about it.  And Internet is the key infrastructure
of the information society (IS), and thus its governance and polices have
important implication in these power struggles. Thats why IG is important
to all of us. 

While these power struggles are going on at multiple levels in the society
(from, within the household to airline ticketing industry) but it is easier
to understand them through some generalizations
 At the very basic level it
is a power struggle between ordinary individuals and institutions that have
amassed illegitimate power, and seek to use IS opportunities to
self-aggrandize. The state and the market are two important such
institutions. Civil societys (CS) struggle is to ensure that this doesnt
happen, and we are actually able to use IS opportunities to shift the
balance in favor of the ordinary individual. 

All our discussions on censorship lie in this realm of state versus
individual power struggle in the IS. Incidentally, there is less discussion
on these forums on the market (market, not as Adams ideal, but the market
institutions as they exist) versus individual power equations. 

Both these sets of struggles are important, but for different placed people
in differently placed societies one may look more important than the other

To make matters worse, in the struggles against governments markets often
look like a good ally, and in struggle against markets (as they exist)
governments look like a good ally. All this complicates issues very much,
and make for a very political terrain. 

And then there is another important power struggle among different groups of
people, and different societies (countries, if you will) who are differently
placed and are using the IS context for collective aggrand©izement (how much
ever individuals within societies may refuse to acknowledge their complicity
in this, they remain its beneficiaries and therefore in some ways
accomplices). I can describe many ways in which this is being done, but I
wont because I think it is widely debated and understood. The nature,
governance and policies of IG implicate this struggle as much as the others.

So when we address the essential questions you speak about we need to
identify the context in which different people and different societies are
placed vis a vis it. Such identification is important as what you call as
substantive and constructive contributions on the real question.

Whether my present inputs meets the criteria of do they introduce
principles that unify or principles that divide ? I am not so sure.

It depends on how we see it. If it intensifies our adherence to our
sectional interests, that it fails your criteria. But if it helps to raise
our consciousness, and discourse, towards commonly accepted principles of
fair play, justice (social, economic and all) and equity, then it does. 

Best

Parminder 

________________________________________________

Parminder Jeet Singh

IT for Change, Bangalore

Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 

Tel: (+91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890

Fax: (+91-80) 4146 1055

 <http://www.itforchange.net/> www.ITforChange.net 

  _____  

From: Bertrand de La Chapelle [mailto:bdelachapelle at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 7:45 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; yehudakatz at mailinator.com
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: In the wake of RegisterFly, is ICANN taking
flight?

Point well taken, Yehuda,

As you mention, I was indeed mistaken by the spacing and attributed the
words to you. So my reminder is rather directed a M. Hanson (or Hansen). :-)

On substance, a very concrete element : the debate he refers to about the
legal status of ICANN - and in particular the recent mention in the
President's Strategic Report of the possible future evolution of its legal
status has nothing to do with the RegisterFly debacle. It very much predates
it and is on a completely different level. 

The discussion is part of the delicate issue of the future institutional
architecture of Internet Governance that occupied so much of the time of the
WSIS. ICANN was incorporated as a non-profit California corporation in large
part by lack of any other truly international structure available, apart
from intergovernmental treaty organizations. Remember this was 1998. 

The discussion today is about inventing the right type of framework for
truly multi-stakeholder governance mechanisms, as Wolfgang and I have
consistently argued. Examining existing models (such as the Red Cross or
other Fertilizer association) is only food for thought and not a direct
comparison in terms of functionalities. Nobody can claim he/she has the
ultimate solution. And we all have a joint responsibility to invent it. As
Saint Exupery said : "You cannot predict the future, but you can enable it".

The most difficult activity in the coming months and years will be to
separate the right questions from conspiracy theories; and to do so without
appearing to look down upon people who are coming into the discussion
without the ten-year background information on the debates that already took
place. in particular, could everybody accept that it is possible to point
ICANN's shortcomings and try to remedy them, and at the same time recognize
that people working in it and its board members in particular are also
trying to do good and are not just mischevious machiavelian traitors to the
cause of the global Internet Community ?  

I see the present debate heating up with a mixture of attraction and fear :
attraction because such discussions are long overdue and it is worth having
them : the underlying issues are essential; but fear also because common
sense can be easily overcome by righteous passions and mutual respect is
rapidly lost in the process.  

There is an important criteria to appreciate people's comments : do they
help everybody understand the issues or somebody's position better ? do they
introduce principles that unify or principles that divide ? do they help
shape a better system, that will be more just and more efficient for
everybody ? or will they generate more anger and opposition ?  

The latter is easier. But let's give credit to those who try more
constructive approaches. This does not mean there should be no debate, quite
on the contrary, but just that it should pit ideas against ideas rather than
people against people. Unless these people are renouncing their very
humanity and, carried away by the seduction of their own arguments, become
mere instruments of the ideas they believe in. 

Looking forward to substantive and constructive contributions on the real
question : what is the future institutional architecture of Internet
Governance ? and where should it be discussed ? 

Best

Bertrand
-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle
On a personnal basis and not as an official French position. 
Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

"Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de Saint
Exupéry 
("there is no better mission for humans than uniting humans") 

On 4/9/07, yehudakatz at mailinator.com <yehudakatz at mailinator.com > wrote: 

Bertrand,

Just to clairify, the statements were from an artical, and are not my words.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/05/icann_registerfly_litigation

I think the Author [Burke Hansen] a US citizen, realizes that ICANN was
incorporated as " a nonprofit public benefit corporation ... " and 

His point is in regards to ICANN working under the status of an
International
Organization (Body), and using that status as an indemnifying shield, from
legal culpability.

The comparison He made was with the International Red Cross and
International 
Olympic Committee (IOC)

re:

"... Why would ICANN need Red Cross-style international legal protections
when
it's not out saving refugees and inoculating babies like the Red Cross? The
international organization that ICANN does have something in common with is
one 
famous for its opaqueness and arrogant lack of accountability, the
International Olympic Committee (IOC). ICANN's not saving the world. Like it
or
not, ICANN is engaged in commerce, not charity work, although it is a 
California nonprofit corporation. The IOC, too, is engaged in commerce,
which
is marketing the Olympics and extorting stadium facilities out of local
communities. It would be unfortunate if ICANN were to take advantage of the 
RegisterFly mess as an excuse to lock itself away from public opinion the
way
the IOC has. ..."

Being a US Non-Profit Organization, does not create an 'International Body',
of
which sanctioning of its "International" status ironically could be done by
the 
U.N.
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