[governance] Reinstate the Vote

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 22 nov. 07 à 02:06, Suresh Ramasubramanian a écrit :

> Meryem Marzouki [21/11/07 19:28 +0100]:
>> Doesn't this advocate in favor of day to day policy making, as  
>> well as first levels of control, as close as possible to end  
>> users? And leave only higher coordination levels to global  
>> entities? The closer you are, the
>
> This wont unfortunately work .. there's enough of a gap between global
> operational concerns and local concerns .. with 90%++ of local  
> concerns
> being caused by reasons that just can't be laid at ICANN's door.

You're perfectly right, but the point is that we aren't talking of  
the same "local" : you refer to the current framework, with ICANN  
making global policy (like TLDs approval, etc. : all what ICANN is  
currently doing) and I refer to a framework where we have many  
"ICANNs", i.e. making their own policies encompassing the same tasks  
at local levels (approval of local TLDs, etc.). And to further  
clarify, "local" doesn't necessarily mean geographically local, but  
local to one of these many "ICANNs" in terms of policy making: one  
such local ICANN could perfectly be Worldwide-Friends-of-Suresh-ICANN.

I'm following up here to the coordinated decentralization scheme I  
suggested some days ago: a coordination of many roots and many "ICANNs".
(Note that I don't necessarily advocate many roots in the technical  
sense, but if this is needed to obtain many "ICANNs" as "political  
roots" making their sovereign policy for a given group of TLDs, then  
fine).

Example with the current TLDs, instead of the current situation with  
ICANN, let's suppose that we have:
- For the ccTLDs:
	+ ICANN-1 for all the ccTLDs (that we can call ITU if one  
insists:)), or, alternatively
	+ ICANN-1 for all ccTLDs of UN Region 1, ..., ICANN-5 for all ccTLDs  
of UN Region 5 (or are they 6 regions?)
- For the gTLDs:
	+ ICANN-6 (if choosing the second proposal above)) for, say, 20% of  
the current .org 2LDs (let's call their gTLD .20pcorg) plus, say, 30%  
of the current .com 2LDs (under .30pccom gTLD)
	+ ... until , say, ICANN-25: any re-grouping of current 2LDs under  
different gTLDs. I'm not interested in the re-grouping criteria as  
for now.
	+ ICANN-26 to ICANN-n: one for each current alternative root
	+ ICANN-(n+1) to ICANN-m: one for each future other alternative root

Let me repeat here: this is only for the sake of examplifying, and,  
all these (1 to m) roots under these 1 to m ICANNs management being  
coordinated.
In this situation, local day to day policy making and first levels of  
control means that any ICANN-x is sovereign (and accountable to its  
users) for: new TLD approval under its own root, its own UDRP policy  
within its jurisdiction, etc. (all kind of policy making ICANN is  
during doing at global level).

[...]

>> By manageable, I mean that, as a voter, you have enough means of  
>> finding your way through it, understand what is at stake, what are  
>> the proposals from the different candidates, and have a reasonable  
>> chance to make a
>
> So, how many voters do you think are going to be actually there who  
> fit
> that profile and who arent already icann regulars [...]
> or on the fringes of ICANN as observers [...]

Much more, all in all, than at the at-large ICANN elections. Because  
they would vote for elections at *their* ICANN-x board, local to  
them, be it a geographical or a political locality. But this is only  
expectations, just like yours. The right answer currently is "who  
knows?". But let me add that, in such a framework, while elections do  
still matter, they matter far less, actually, since you can choose to  
change from ICANN-x to ICANN-y if you disagree with ICANN-x policy  
and you prefer ICANN-y policy. You can even start your own ICANN-z,  
provided that you are in position to coalesce with a reasonably large  
group of like-minded people/organizations. After all, you have such  
(though limited) choice currently at registrar level, and even  
(though indirectly) at registy level, simply by moving to another  
provider.

Awareness is an issue of highest importance. But first it's easier to  
raise awareness at a local level than at the global level, explaining  
what is at stake with situations that average people understand,  
because they understand how they affect them, instead of having to  
read all ICANN and ICANN-related thousands of reports and having to  
attend or even simply follow ICANN meetings (you explained yourself  
many times how this is unfeasible).
As I see it, awareness and capacity building on Internet governance  
issues (in narrow: DNS policy; or broad understanding; everything  
from human rights to consumer to - you name it - issues) is integral  
part of Internet literacy needs: a sine qua non condition to be a  
full, self-determined, citizen (not only consumer or user) using the  
Internet.

I share your concerns about biased overviews, etc. But I also know  
that is hardly avoidable, in the same way as there are different  
candidates in a political election presenting biased views, and,  
after all, that's normal: there is no "single truth" here, there are  
political choices (although with more or less honesty, I agree, but  
we're humans, after all). The only way to make this easier to avoid  
is, in addition to capacity building, to have many different views  
than can be expressed and chosen.

> Fully agree here but we are not going to fix this by changing the  
> voting
> process.

I agree with this and changing the voting process is not my demand. I  
already said that, even if improved, an at-large global voting  
process wont be satisfactory. My point is to have many local  
elections to local ICANNs, and neither one global election to a  
global ICANN, nor many local elections to a still global ICANN.

Meryem____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance