[governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN Oversight: A Historic Opportunity

[Parminder]

Hi McTim

First some clarifications.


>> The present effort under discussion is aimed at the DoC. So it is as per
>> what you advise. And when you ask DoC to give up supervision it is always
>> wise to also say give it up to whom or what. and next to a ICANN floating
>> free from any political accountability (which is not acceptable to us)

>Who is "us"?  AFAIK, the IGC has NOT reached consensus that an "ICANN
>floating free from any political accountability" is not acceptable.

I don't mean the IGC. I am sorry if the use of 'us' caused some confusion. I
know there is no such consensus reached in IGC. Its only that in our (again,
see, I say, 'our') advocacy work, we (those, in advocacy work) often use the
collective 'pronoun'. This in our mind relates what we are expressing to,
what in our opinion, is the view of the constituencies to which we may, or
at least purport to, connect.  

'It is not acceptable to 'me'' or 'what 'I' want is' looks a bit pompous in
this context, and that is also not the real point in collective advocacy
efforts. And use of the collective pronoun also has the effect of a vague
mental check on what we express. Anyway, I am sorry for the confusion. This
'us' here is my organization, and the group(s) that I identify with in my
advocacy work. I agree, I as a co-coordinator should be a bit more careful
in the use of the term in IG related matters. 


>> Now to explain briefly why do we seek structural and not merely
evolutionary
>> changes. The new CEO

>AFAIK, Paul Twomey is still CEO of ICANN.

A slip. I meant the new chairman. 

>> influencing its function. But all the political contestations around it
>> prove that its functions have great - present or future - political
>> implications.

>It SHOULD only do narrow technical coordination
 
This statement read with your view that ' an "ICANN floating free from any
political accountability" is ... the ideal situation in my mind' is the crux
of the problem.

It is a simple political concept that only a political body with due
legitimacy can be sovereign, that is have no oversight over it... or to use
the expression ' floating free from any political accountability'.

To make it more comprehensible, to agree that ICANN only does tech function,
and also to say it should be free floating without any policy oversight is
similar to saying that the network and IT systems manager in my office
should have no oversight and be free to do what he wants. Now, obviously
that would not be proper. Any technical function is done only within a set
of organizational (in ICANN's case, global socio-political) objectives,
laying out which is not a technical function and therefore needs to be done
at some other level. 

I would say it is quite simple.

>Here is where I am lost, on one hand there are lots of folk who
>complain about the bloated budget and 20 US cents per domain, and on
>the other hand there are folk who complain that ICANN doesn't do
>enough.  I suggest that if you want ICANN to reach out to every single
>person and poll them on how they want the Internet governed (even
>those who don't know what the Internet is) the budget would grow by an
>order of magnitude or more!

You are right. No global governance system can attempt to reach every single
person, in any meaningful manner. And therefore the nature of structures
that mediate representation and legitimization become important. We are here
discussing the nature of these structures. I am saying the present ICANN
outreach structures connect to a very narrow constituency. We need other
structures that connect better, without upsetting budget calculations too
much. Connecting through IGF is one such idea. 

Parminder 



-----Original Message-----
From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:15 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Parminder
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN
Oversight: A Historic Opportunity

Hello Parminder,

On Feb 6, 2008 5:56 PM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Suresh
>
>
>
> I think we broadly agree the present DoC supervision is something that
> should not carry on, and we should try to do some thing to change the
> situation.  The difference of view is about where this battle should be
> waged.
>
>
>
>
> >You need to lobby DoC, and you need to lobby within ICANN.
>
>
>
> The present effort under discussion is aimed at the DoC. So it is as per
> what you advise. And when you ask DoC to give up supervision it is always
> wise to also say give it up to whom or what. and next to a ICANN floating
> free from any political accountability (which is not acceptable to us)

Who is "us"?  AFAIK, the IGC has NOT reached consensus that an "ICANN
floating free from any political accountability" is not acceptable.
It would be the ideal situation in my mind, and I think in several
other folks minds IIRC.

Avri's is directly on point in her latest mail:


"The IGP proposal would not only subordinate ICANN to
the rest of the peers, but would also force the group into becoming a
decision making body.  This would seem to me to be a radical change in
the nature of the forum."

I agree also that the IGF is not ready for such a change.


the
> soft oversight by IGF looks like an constructive suggestion.
>
>
>
> As for lobbying within ICANN, a couple of issues.
>
>
>
> You may not be right to say that whatever changes in or about ICANN will
> come from within ICANN. You are under-estimating the amount of increase of
> power of GAC in ICANN, for instance, and where from these 'changes' arose,
> what factors caused them. They aren't from within ICANN.


You are correct about that, "we" caused them (we being all the folks
who participated in WSIS negotiations and who kept putting  names and
numbers on the table.)


Though ICANN has
> gone down the path of some reforms lately (also often triggered, if
> indirectly, by forces outside it) if one seeks structural changes in ICANN
> one cant just rely on persuasive forces aimed at structures of ICANN
itself.
>
>
>
> Now to explain briefly why do we seek structural and not merely
evolutionary
> changes. The new CEO

AFAIK, Paul Twomey is still CEO of ICANN.

rightly described ICANN during the Rio meeting as an
> industry-led governance system. Well, I don't like industry based
governance
> systems. Not for a phenomenon that is increasingly getting under the skin
of
> almost every social institution, and structurally transforming them. For
me
> it is a close equivalent to a pharma-industry led global health policy
> systems.


>
>
>
> ICANN likes to tell everyone that it does only technical coordination
> function. Now, if it does only that I have no interest in participating
and
> influencing its function. But all the political contestations around it
> prove that its functions have great - present or future - political
> implications.

It SHOULD only do narrow technical coordination, however, the folk who
want it to do more have forced it to do more


So, I cant participate in the so called stakeholder out-reach
> systems of an organization that says that it does only technical functions
> and correspondingly its outreach systems also mostly seek out people of
> technical persuasions (the connection, to that extent, is obvious and
fair).
>
>
>
> Internet is a big social phenomenon with stakeholders in all sectors, and
> they should be equally enabled to participate - ICANN system does not
reach
> out to them. It has constructed a somewhat dubious category of Internet
> users which too it not what it is able to reach out to.

Here is where I am lost, on one hand there are lots of folk who
complain about the bloated budget and 20 US cents per domain, and on
the other hand there are folk who complain that ICANN doesn't do
enough.  I suggest that if you want ICANN to reach out to every single
person and poll them on how they want the Internet governed (even
those who don't know what the Internet is) the budget would grow by an
order of magnitude or more!

And it is very
> comfortable to reach out a largely technical community, which does not
> challenge its structural basis,

tell that to the NRO!

and have issues with it that are relatively
> peripheral and contestations stays in these areas.
>
>
>
> Do you think the largely technical community that interacts through ICANN
> build stakeholder structures represent the width of the social
> constituencies that are implicated in IG today - which is basically all
> people of the world. Can you point to anyone who is not directly or
> indirectly implicated by the structural changes caused by the Internet -
> which changes themselves depend on how the basic internet platform
develops?
> What are the structures of participation of these people?
>
>
>
> And in this context, that I have drawn above, where is the legitimacy of
an
> continued industry-led governance system - I have deep ideological
problems
> with this neo-liberalization of every social system, governance in this
case
> -  or even a technical community dominated governance system, whose
> viewpoints are valid, but represent a very small portion of the range of
> stakeholders implicated.
>
>
>
> A group of technical community members in their recent proposal
> (http://intgovforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=419.0) for MAG renewal give
a
> useful guideline ""AG members should be chosen on the basis of how large
and
> diverse a community they connect to (which is different than
"represent")."
> One can try and analyze how big and diverse communities do the present
ICANN
> out-reach / participation structures connect to.  I don't see ICANN score
> well at all on this.
>
>
>
> I don't think I would have persuaded you to my viewpoint, but you may
> perhaps understand a little better. It is not as simple as you say, in
> response to Jeanette's email
>
>
>
> >when there is an existing structure and an existing path to change /
alter
> governance processes, trying to create a >whole new path isnt going to be
> productive.
>
>
>
> Parminder
>
>
>
>  ________________________________
>
>
> From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:suresh at hserus.net]
>  Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 5:18 PM
>
>
>  To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; 'Parminder'; 'Milton L Mueller'; 'Jeremy
> Malcolm'
>  Subject: RE: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN
> Oversight: A Historic Opportunity
>
>
>
>
>
> Parminder,
>
>
>
> I'm simply being realistic here.  Do we expend all the energy of this
group
> tilting at a windmill that isn't going to budge all that fast?  And gets
> moved by a completely different set of winds (aka a different set of
> stakeholder communities that wield influence there)?
>
>
>
> I'm an Indian, and you raised the question of the freedom struggle.  A
whole
> lot of people tried to beat the british using armed force - petty rulers,
> people who shot a magistrate here, threw a bomb there etc .. did that
help?
> It was only when the Indian equivalent of civil society organized together
> into a single party, with visible leaders and consensus (in this case, the
> Indian National Congress) and got into the very system the British
operated
> to govern the country.
>
>
>
> In other words, you wont be able to change this from outside, and won't be
> able to change this by operating within the IGF, or submitting petitions
and
> releasing position papers.  You need to lobby DoC, and you need to lobby
> within ICANN.  Whatever change will take place in ICANN, whatever
decisions
> on ICANN's governance get taken, will come from within ICANN and from
within
> DoC  - you are not going to find it easy or possible to wrest control from
> DoC and reassign it to IGF.
>
>
>
> ICANN is also, e&oe DoC oversight, a largely open and stakeholder driven
> process.  There, just like IGF and elsewhere, those stakeholders who have
> enough stake in ICANN to invest time, people and money to participate
> actively in it get their views pushed forward ahead of civ soc views.  It
> doesn't help that civ soc has pitifully inadequate representation there.
>
>
>
> In other words, talking wont help.  Position papers, PhD theses etc wont
> help either.  And nor will all the discussion help if it goes on in the
IGF.
> Taking this battle into ICANN and into lobbying DoC  is what is going to
> help.
>
>
>
>                 suresh
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net]
>  Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 12:38 PM
>  To: 'Suresh Ramasubramanian'; governance at lists.cpsr.org; 'Milton L
> Mueller'; 'Jeremy Malcolm'
>  Subject: RE: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN
> Oversight: A Historic Opportunity
>
>
>
> Suresh
>
>
>
> > There's no meaningful consensus likely to be achieved, especially with
> politically charged proposals
>
>
>
> But before we explore what CAN happen, the issue is what are OUR political
> views on this matter. Which way WE want it to go.
>
>
>
> > DoC isn't going to give up oversight, no matter what kind of pipe dream
> proposals emanate from IGF, IGP etc
>
>
>
> The prior issue still remains whether you/ we are a part of that
> 'pipe-dream' or not. Are you happy with DoC's oversight ? Lets state our
> political priorities upfront rather than put up the smokescreen of what
may
> or may not 'practically' happen. (That's often the obvious viewpoint/
> strategy of those happy with the status quo.) And if we don't have any
> political views on this matter at all let that be stated too.
>
>
>
> Civil society advocacy is having political views and fighting for them. do
> you think developed countries are going to increase development aid to
close
> to 1 percent of their GDP, are they going to agree to development-friendly
> trade policy, will they allow public domain to proliferate in face of
> IP-fueled economic growth plans, would they accept disproportionate
(fairly
> so) emission control norms for themselves........
>
>
>
> So, why is civil society ever even bothering with these issue or pipe
> dreams.. You are an Indian, what would you have thought of all efforts of
> freedom fighters in early decades of the last century. pipe dreams?
>
>
>
> So before we speak about what may happen lets know what do you/ we want..
> And if we just don't bother say that as well.
>
>
>
> When you speak of 'extraordinarily vocal sections of civ soc' I do not
know
> whom do you speak of and why would you want them to be less vocal. I
thought
> IGC tries to provide space and possibilities for a greater voice for civil
> society. Or do you mean ONLY some sections of CS are 'extra-ordinarily'
> vocal, in that case which are these sections of the CS whose voice you
think
> gets suppressed in the process, and which you may want to promote.
>
>
>
> So, in the context of the present thread of discussion, it is isn't enough
> to make the observation 'there isn't any IGF'. We need also to state if we
> really want any IGF as such, and if so what IGF.
>
>
>
> Parminder
>
>
>
>  ________________________________
>
>
> From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:suresh at hserus.net]
>  Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 4:39 PM
>  To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; 'Parminder'; 'Milton L Mueller'; 'Jeremy
> Malcolm'
>  Subject: RE: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN
> Oversight: A Historic Opportunity
>
>
>
> There isn't any "IGF" as such - only some extraordinarily vocal sections
of
> civ soc, some sections of government (which may be a bit different, in
some
> cases, from the GAC regulars), some industry etc.  Yes there'd be a
> substantial cross section of these that are active in ICANN, but ..
>
>
>
> 1.   There's no meaningful consensus likely to be achieved, especially
with
> politically charged proposals
>
> 2.   DoC isn't going to give up oversight, no matter what kind of pipe
dream
> proposals emanate from IGF, IGP etc
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net]
>  Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 12:03 PM
>  To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; 'Milton L Mueller'; 'Jeremy Malcolm'
>  Subject: RE: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN
> Oversight: A Historic Opportunity
>
>
>
> So which is this IGF that wont like an ICANN accountable to it.... and why
> ?????
>
> This is a set of probing questions. And if Jeremy's observation be true,
> would it not signify a captured institution. I am not jumping to any
> conclusions (as yet) but drawing implications from some elements of this
> discussion, which probably will provoke more debate in this important
area.
>
>
>
> Parminder
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
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>



-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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