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

Tue Apr 17 08:53:43 EDT 2007

Hi Wolfgang
One small correction - the AtLarge has over 90 ALSes and several applicants
to be voted on soon, so hopefully we will make the 100+ mark very soon.
And you know I agree with your view of the potential of the ALAC in the
future. But there's a lot of work to do.
Jacqueline

-----Original Message-----
From: Kleinwächter, Wolfgang
[mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 4:32 AM
To: Lee McKnight; governance at lists.cpsr.org; Alejandro Pisanty
Subject: AW: AW: AW: [governance] .xxx. igc and igf

Thanks Lee 

for the entertaining comparison between IG/ICANN/IGF and the 50 years of
European Unification. You know one problem in Europe is the role of the
Commission (which would be ICANN Staff in your picture). The highest
authority is with the Heads of State in the European Council (which would be
the Board). But we know that in many cases - in particular for day to day
operaitons - the de facto power is with the Commission (labelled as the
"Brussels Burocracy"). 

To compare the IGF with the European Parliament I disagree. IGF has a much
broader mandate than ICANN. This is a different level. It is like comparing
the EU with the UN. It is in the interst of ICANN to keep its mandate narrow
technically defined. My "parliament" for ICANN would be At-Large. You and me
and others, who have been involved in the 2000 elections, have opposed for
years the removing of voting ALM directors from the board and the creation
of a burocratical beast composed of dubios ALS, RALOs and the powerless ALAC
which can send one non-voting delegate into the Board. But as history of the
last years has told us, there is no strong alternative movement. With other
words, we have to live with the reality and to develop this reality. The
first European parliament had no power. It was just "window dressing" to
establish such a component in the whole system which was ruled and dominated
by the European Council and the European Commission. The role of the
Parliament grew slowly over the years. Unfortunately the European
Constitution, which would have given more power to the Parliement, was
rejected (one of the irony of history where people vote for some subjective
(legitimitae) reasons against their own objective interests). However, the
issue remains on the agenda. 

For ICANN and its future the challenge is how to go beyond the RALOs. Now we
have four recognized RALOs. We have about 50 ALSs. The door for individuals
is open (or lts say half open) in most of the RALOs. If the ALAC becomes
more active, sending recommendations to the Board, organizing independent
workshops and seminars to burning issues, positioning itself as the
representatives of users and conusmers (consumer protection will become a
big isue with the emerging secondory domain name maerket, domain name
tasintg, the debacle with RegisterFly, WHOIS, iDNS and soon also RFID) the
whole picture could look rather different in October 2009 when the JPA comes
to an end.  

Next step could be the call to transform the ALAC into an At Large
Membership Supporting Organisation (ALSO) with the right to send a minimum
of two voting directors to the Board. 

One comment to the Convention. I recognize your arguments. Probably the
dissent comes with the language. The terminology is legally defined. A
convention under international law is a convention. Look into the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969). If you call it "Multistakeholder
Framework Arrangement on Internet Governance" (MUFARIG) propably it looks
different.   

Best regards

wolfgang

________________________________

Von: Lee McKnight [mailto:LMcKnigh at syr.edu]
Gesendet: Mo 16.04.2007 23:15
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Kleinwächter, Wolfgang; Alejandro Pisanty
Betreff: 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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