[governance] USG on ICANN - no movement here

[Carlton Samuels]

Parminder:

I fully agree with your articulation of what is. And I read Avri's statement
as an indirect expression of the same.

Carlton

-----Original Message-----
From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 10:04 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: RE: [governance] USG on ICANN - no movement here


> while working in the world that exists is of course a tactical
> necessity, one wonders whether it might be useful to see what could be
> done, in cooperation with other interested stakeholders, to bring
> about that which should happen no matter how much DOC says it won't.
> 
> 
> DOC saying it won't let go, largely because of the current US mania
> for holding on to so called 'strategic' resources, can't be allowed to
> be the last word in this saga.  It is a bargaining position.  i think
> the question becomes how does one get around this particular
> bargaining position.

Avri (and others)

In fact there are possible and available ways to seek a way around. But as
'working in a world that exists is a tactical necessity', exploring
solutions that are presented in the real world may also be a tactical
necessity.  If our world as it exists is not perfect, neither can we expect
solutions to land in our laps with a halo of perfection. 

Now, whether one chooses the 'tactical necessity' of living and accepting
the existing world, or the 'tactical necessity' of exploring available ways
of change, is itself a political choice. This said, there are some ways to
try and get away for the US oversight 'problem'...

Enhanced cooperation - EC - (I know many just don't even want to hear the
name, but as I said that is no superiority there, just a political
position)was a compromise open window left by the WSIS to seek a possible
solution to this 'problem', among others that pertaining to other global
Internet policy issues.

EC is not 'clearly' UN, it is somewhere in-between, quite indeterminate, but
with good pouring of multistakeholder terminology and all. This is a window
left for those who really seek a way out. It is even left to be influenced
in different ways, if one does engage. But since hardly anyone other than
developing countries govs seem to ever mention EC (developing country civil
society is almost not present in global IG spaces) no one seems to really
seriously want a solution or a way out. Or doesn't want it that seriously,
to risk possible dangers of the unknown. 

Then there is the IGF - clearly a multi-stakeholder body - which could have
possibly developed towards various possibilities of greater soft etc power.
That could possibly point us to some innovative ways out (IGP recently
proposed such exploration). But most more vocal CS individuals took
political positions towards weakening IGF - even from what was its
legitimate 'power' and domain as per the Tunis mandate. Ok, IGF may be  a
bit angular space to look for solution, but everyone agree we aren't ready
to go to existing possibilities and structures, so new need to be explored,
and we could be  a bit innovative. In any case, EC still clearly is the
direction to seek solutions, if one is interested. Especially if CS can
cheer OECD ministers gathering for making global Internet policy, why
exclude poor country governments. And we engage well, on principle and
strategically, we may get something much more participative and democratic
than an OECD ministerial. 

Well, these are old issues, discussed often. I only raise it to show that
there are real world ways to explore getting out of the US oversight
situation. But as everything else they are real world, not ideal. And
pursuing them or not are political choices we cant escape from. These
choices represent our political positions. 

In political arenas one who clearly professes a political position (as John
Levine unapologetically does to a neo-imperialist ideology - 'things aren't
going to change, just accept and submit to the big bully') and those who
profess it by default may really amount to the same. Unless, one is ready to
explore or at least discuss reasonable options. 

And ICANN oversight is political - it is political in US hands, it will be
political if any fiction of non-political ICANN free-float is proposed, it
will be political if it goes into the hands of a global/ international body,
and it will be political if it get dispersed over a governance matrix. 

Parminder 





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Avri Doria [mailto:avri at psg.com]
> Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 6:03 PM
> To: Governance Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [governance] USG on ICANN - no movement here
> 
> 
> On 3 Aug 2008, at 14:05, John Levine wrote:
> 
> > Regardless, the US DOC isn't going away, so I'll be interested to see
> > to what extent the governance crowd would prefer to demand changes
> > that won't happen or would prefer to figure out how to work in the
> > world that actually exists.
> 
> 
> while working in the world that exists is of course a tactical
> necessity, one wonders whether it might be useful to see what could be
> done, in cooperation with other interested stakeholders, to bring
> about that which should happen no matter how much DOC says it won't.
> 
> 
> DOC saying it won't let go, largely because of the current US mania
> for holding on to so called 'strategic' resources, can't be allowed to
> be the last word in this saga.  It is a bargaining position.  i think
> the question becomes how does one get around this particular
> bargaining position.
> 
> a.
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