[governance] USG on ICANN - no movement here

[William Drake]

Hi John,

On 8/8/08 7:31 AM, "John Levine" <icggov at johnlevine.com> wrote:

> Hi.  I'm back.
> 
>> Or what about an ICANN MOU with the UN as a first step? That appeals
>> to me as something that might get traction at both ends and we could
>> support.
> 
> Hmmn.  How would that be different in practice from handing it to the
> ITU?  I don't think the ITU is particularly evil, but I also don't
> think that it would be likely to do a good job overseeing the
> Internet.  The chances of something really bad happening would be much
> higher, e.g., a bunch of small countries gang up and demand that each
> country gets the same number of IP addresses, or something else that
> has superficial political appeal but would be technically disastrous.
 
Two thoughts.

First, it can be problematic to conflate the UN and the ITU.  While ITU
became a specialized agency of the UN in 1947, its a much older entity with
its own culture and procedures and its operational ties to the UN's core
institutions generally have been quite limited (including with respect to
the treatment of civil society, alas).  Political relations have not always
been good.  And it is understood in relevant quarters that letting ITU
unilaterally reign over anything related to ICT by default is not
necessarily a good idea.  WSIS was put under the inter-agency HLSOC and
other orgs were given roles.  Neither IGF nor enhanced cooperation were put
under the ITU, despite objections from Russia etc.  And the US and most if
not all industrialized countries would never agree to giving the ITU any
sort of oversight relation to ICANN.  Bottom line, I don't know for sure
whether the UN SG or GA could legally be the home of an MOU, but I wouldn't
simply assume that a UN role means ITU control.

Second, the nightmare scenario you describe is entirely inconsistent with
the ITU's 140 year history.  I cannot think of a single instance in which a
bunch of small countries ganged up and pushed through anything the
industrialized countries did not accept, and I cannot see how under this
could even happen under ITU decision making procedures.  Plus this is hardly
an intergovernmental policy space; global business (and in this case,
Internet administrative bodies and their constituencies) can't be ignored.
Plus there's now increasing differentiation of interests among developing
countries in ITU as in other international institutions (WSIS as well), so
your bunch of countries probably would not enjoy uniform support in the
global South.  Bottom line, a winning coalition for manifestly wrong-headed
policies on names and numbers could not be assembled.

A MOU might well be a bad idea politically and operationally; the prospects
for getting it right substantively and managing the process effectively
would be very difficult.  But were the idea to be seriously contemplated
(highly unlikely), I wouldn't assume a priori that the sky would fall by
definition. 

Cheers,

Bill


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