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

[McTim]

Hi,

On Feb 8, 2008 11:41 AM, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>
>
> Hi McTim
>
> First some clarifications.
>
>
>
<snip>
>
>
> I don't mean the IGC. I am sorry if the use of 'us' caused some confusion.

good, I understand now what "us" means.
<snip>
> >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'.

And ICANN is not legitimate in your eyes, but legitimate in mine.

>
> 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.

I don't think this is a useful analogy, in that your IT person is
clearly within your organisation, whereas ICANN is not within IGF or
the UN.


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,

Again, we differ, ICANN's mission (objectives) is global, but not
socio-political, except in the eyes of those who wish it so):

"The mission of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers ("ICANN") is to coordinate, at the overall level, the global
Internet's systems of unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure
the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier
systems."


> laying out which is not a technical function and therefore needs to be done
> at some other level.
>

Agreed, I would say at the bottom of the bottom up process.


> 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.

Agreed, this connecting is called enhanced cooperation, or EC3 as
Wolfman calls it.  I have given many examples in previous posts.
Anything more is slippery slopery, which IMHO should be avoided at all
costs.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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