AW: AW: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf

[wcurrie at apc.org]

Except that it's curious in the case of the .xxx decision that one of the things that susan crawford was saying in her dissent was to identify a form of the principle of subsidiarity, that Icann needed to grant the .xxx gTLD and let governments deal with it at the national  level. If Icann had followed the rules it claimed to subscribe to, then the principle of subsidiarity would have come into play and Icann would not be accused of caving in to political pressure. The governments may not have liked it but at least it would have opened a real debate on internet public policy and served to explore more clearly the space of Icann and not-Icann. Some of us Icann outsiders see the .xxx decision as a lost opportunity to clarify or even set in motion a real process of devloping the broader internet governace issues. Instead Icann is the recipient of the worst of both spaces - not quite a technical regulator and now a public policy regulator without a mandate. Not independent - which is a critical element of a regulator,but one that shows itself susceptible to the will of governments, to put it kindly - 'captured' to put it in regulatory language.. In other words, why make a fuss about the ITU when Icann will do governments' will of its own volition. It would behove Icann to get involved in the debate on internet governance proactively, if only so we can get a sense of boundaries of what is Icann and what is not Icann and expand the work WGIG began and the IGF is supposed to continue. The IGF is a good vehicle to do this. Will Icann itself have the guts to propose it in the May consulation of the IGF in Geneva?

There was an interesting piece in the Financial Times a few weeks ago by an investment analyst who noted a pattern in some internet companies from netscape to yahoo that when they became more interested in themselves as opposed to their users, their value in the market dropped.  As Icann is a  private corporation dealing in DNS and IP addresses, it should perhaps think of the analogy involved here and think about what it would take to become an independent regulator accountable to the global public..

Willie
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld  

-----Original Message-----
From: "Lee McKnight" <LMcKnigh at syr.edu>
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:15:49 
To:<governance at lists.cpsr.org>,<wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de>,"Alejandro Pisanty" <apisan at servidor.unam.mx>
Subject: Re: AW: AW: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf

Wolfgang, Alejandro,

I generally agree with both of you.  

Which is why I suggest the focus on the beasts in the room, and
something of an ongoing 'gap analysis' to understand what else might be
needed. In time.  And why I circumscribed the discussion to Internet
governance, not global governance in general.

But still if I can stretch the analogies, and make clear I am expressly
not proposing global government, early ICANN was kind of like the euro
coal and steel union of the 50s, which was 'only' trying to rationalize
a couple industries, suffering from overcapacity rather than scarcity in
our case.  A technical matter.

ICANN then evolved into something more like the EU commission - without
the political oversight.  Which led to the natural reaction of
WGIG/WSIS. And Maastricht etc. But still like the EU, ICANN is quite
aware of a lot of messy Internet policy areas it would much rather stay
out of, and leave to others to debate and try to fix. But if there's
noone else in the room, they are the only usual suspect to look to. In
EU circles it is all about 'subsidiarity,' where if it's possible to
leave the EU out and member states address, then they do. In general. 

IGF is a bit like the early Euro parliament, lots of talk but by the
design of its makers little to no power.  Odds on it gaining hard power
are long, but IGF as an insititution as such is all of a few months old.
So, too soon to say.  But expressing opinions on what it should or
should not be next are appropriate.

Between ICANN and its constrained by design areas of competence and
authority, which reasonable people can reasonably disagree on (and it is
the fate of all regulators is to be bashed and sued regularly, so best
just get used to it) and IGF's expansive field of discussion, there
is...well what exactly? At the moment, not much. Hence this discussion. 
(and just to be clear, I never assumed ICANN would 'take direction' from
igf - but I ndo assume folks will listen to suggestions an d
recommendations.)  

I'm not sure why an 'Internet framework convention' couldn't help
elaborate, in time, what else might be needed for global Internet
governance. I also don't see why an Internet framework convention is
necessarily top down, is decided upon by states rather tham principally
by indviduals or yes stakeholder groups, nor why eg this open email list
discussion wouldn;t count as part of it.  

In fact I think the convention's already begun, semi-formally, with
Parminder's discussion of the concept at IGF I.  Not very state-centric
so far, in fact states think nothing's happening 'cause they didn;t say
'start.'

Anyway, my basic point is this set of issues should be on the agenda of
IGF II, for discussion. Kind of where are we now, where are we going,
with the 'we' being icann & igf, & any internet governance beasts not
yet created.

Lee

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

>>> wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de 4/16/2007 9:59 AM
>>>
Alejandro:
 
What "model 2" from the WGIG was meant to do is to build up
institutions, based on principles, when doing so will solve a problem,
and then of course build up the right type of organization (always
making sure that the different stakeholders are represented properly,
the rule of law obtains, etc.) and NOT build nor try to build now an
all-encompassing institution.

So, ICANN may evolve, as you say, "yet again into a somewhat different
beast" (it most surely will) but it will still be concentrated on the
coordination needed for the centrally organized unique-value identifiers
of the Internet. And, taking the positive from your message, studying
the ICANN experience instead of beating it to the death will allow to
build up
other organizations properly.

In pursuing the above, or other trajectories, one must also make sure
that Civil Society is not being recruited to do someone else's dirty
work. That is one of the risks that I see this year for moving towards a
Framework Convention, as well as that the idea fuels or resonates with
the idea of a Global Government, besides other objections that may
become a separate track when timely.

Wolfgang:
 
I think Alejandro raises the right point. ICANN is like a pioneer,
trying to explore new territory, finding its own role and pointing into
directions where others have to take the lead to be active or where a
"new beast" has to be created (always based on the principle of
multistakholderism and open and transparent processes). My problems with
the "Framework Convention" (a tradtional intergovernmental treaty) are
the same like Alejandro. It creates a box and the history tells us that
some people will start to fill the box with something that the creators
of  such a box had not in mind. This is top down. Bottom up means much
more a case by case approach. In the new gTLD cases we are learning that
we will have cases where we are at the crossroads between political and
technical questions and neither ICANN nor the GAC will take the full
responsibility for both and there is no procedure in place for a
division of labour among the existing decision taking institutions. Here
I see the need to "invent" something. But such an invention would be
neither a new "world government of the Internet" nor another big
organisation. It would like an ad hoc committee with a clear defined
(narrow) mandate for decision making in a limited number of very
specified cases.
 
Regards 
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