AW: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming ICANN

[KovenRonald at aol.com]

Dear All --

I'd like to say that I find Wolfgang's comments to be full of common sense.

Previous discussions here on this theme seemed to me to be largely detached 
from reality (and dangerous from a freedom of expression standpoint).

ICANN's structure is obviously flawed from a purely theoretical view of 
political philosophy. Unease with the connnection to a US government that has 
complicated problems in the world is quite understandable. Thankfully, that 
government has not complicated problems related to Internet governance. And dangers 
that it might do so are probably receding as the current US administration 
recedes.

Every other proposal to date for the oversight of Internet governance seems 
to have insuperable practical drawbacks. The analogy seems to be Winnie 
Churchill's view of parliamentary democracy -- the worst system, except for all the 
others.

One of the attractions of the Internet Governance Forum is its more or less 
amiable anarchy. Imagining its transformation into some sort of Internet 
oversight body strikes me not only as nightmarish but -- worse still -- as 
unmanageable.

Universal bottom-up democracy seems chimeric. Bottom-up democracy works in 
relatively small territorial entities. It is hard to imagine a kind of world 
government based on that model. 

In any case, the "international community" (whatever that is) seems to be 
having a very hard time managing current outbreaks of traditional-style 
conflicts. Dealing with competing interests in a totally new environemt like the 
Internet is obviously beyond its current capacities. The existence of a place like 
the IGF to discuss how new oversight and conflict resolution mechanisms might 
possibly come about in the border-defying environment of the Internet is a 
positive situation.

Meanwhile, I think that in a pragmatic spirit, we should stick with what has 
actually worked, rather than seek some ideal model that would inevitably 
create at least as many new conflicts amongst various interest groups as it is 
likely to resolve.

Rony Koven
World Press Freedom Committee

PS My comments are personal. The organizational reference is for purposes of 
identification.


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