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

[Lee McKnight]

Friends,

IGP proposal explicitly endorses ICANN's objective to end the JPA as
soon as possible, remember. One can guess ICANN will welcome CS allies
towards achieving that objective. We encourage your own responses to
NTIA.

I bet we can all agree:
1) ICANN participated in IGF meetings 1 + 2, and will be at 3, 4 & 5.
2) ICANN shared information, and was given feedback at 1 & 2, and this
will continue at 3, 4, & 5.
3) Reports were written following workshops at 1 & 2, and...you get the
idea by now. 
So we all agree, right?
Then this is our modest proposition:
4) IF NTIA were in its own report and decision on what to do with the
JPA, to acknowledge those points, that would be good for ICANN, for IGF,
 for CS, and the global Internet community.  

Will NTIA immediately adopt our simple logic? Why not?  The status quo
is objected to by ICANN, change is objected to by US special interests. 
And global CS will side with US special interests in the NTIA
proceeding? I doubt that, once people stop and reflect.

This will not immediately change the balance of forces in global
Internet politics. It's just one small step for ICANN, and yeah maybe,
one great leap for IGF.

Lee




Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile
>>> parminder at itforchange.net 02/09/08 7:08 AM >>>


Bill

Your analysis of the current power structure and their expected stance
is
obviously right, and an (or THE) important issue here. No one expects
all
these entrenched players to jump to the idea and welcome it with open
arms.

But we all realize that we have a major global issue/ problem at hand -
global Internet policy making, and a poor/non-existent institutional
mechanism for it today - and that its solution will be complex, and we
can
only move towards it by-and-by...

In these circumstances, such ideas as the present IGP proposal are
floated
with the expectation of building some political mass around it, and then
it
may/can get used as one possible alternative when the complexity of the
above problem presents itself in stronger
-have-to-do-something-about-it-terms or major players simply get
relatively
more well-disposed to the need of solving it in an evolutionary manner. 

Strong early skeptic-ism on such proposals within CS, assuming they are
otherwise a positive development from CS point of view, will not allow
even
the shaping of them as one possible alternatives to be considered at
some
stage. 

One of such possible stages can be when it becomes no longer possible to
keep avoiding the enhanced cooperation (EC) thing. Though while I myself
hope that this results in a relatively stronger and clearer, as well as
MS
and transparent, institutional mechanism, on never knows in which
direction
will the negotiations go.... It is entirely possible that under the
political imperative of having something to show against the clear
injunction in TA on EC, like the one on reporting on performance (yes,
towards/on EC, but that can mean many things) developing a structured
reporting arrangement anchored in the IGF may look like a good
compromise,
and lets say US, EU, other OECD countries(among your power
configuration),
other govs and many elements of CS agree to this arrangement. It may put
pressure on others to cone around...

That's just thinking of one scenario. 

BTW, and we have has this discussion earlier (though inconclusively),
you
have been championing the 'assess IG institutions for adherence to WSIS
principles' mandate of IGF. I have never quite understood what exactly
are
the kind of processes you envisage and associate with this activity. 
Are
these very different in substance from the present IGP proposal. WSIS
principles, and I include in the term 'wsis principles' complete WSIS
docs
with all its substantive high level principles expressed in declaration
of
principles etc. Assessing adherence to all these principles is a good
basis
of soft political oversight of IGF over ICANN. I am sure that in your
advocacy for IGF taking steps towards fulfilling the 'assessing for WSIS
principles' mandate you mean some kind of structured arrangements and
some
clear obligation of the implicated institutions to submit to them. If
not
so, there is no one and nothing stopping anyone from assessing whatever
one
wants to at a workshop at the IGF.

Was just wondering if there may be some space for exploring
possibilities of
some degree of common ground on this issue among CS members and groups.

Parminder 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch]
> Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 4:40 PM
> To: Governance
> Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [IGP-ANNOUNCE] IGP Alert: Reforming
ICANN
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On 2/9/08 6:32 AM, "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > from http://internetgovernance.org/pdf/IGP-JPA-08-comments.pdf
> 
> > "Last but not least, ITU and the UN Internet Governance Forum should
> > agree to conduct a bi-annual review and public consultation
concerning
> > ITU's record and accountability."
> >
> > Run that up the flagpole at the next IGF, and see who salutes. I
would
> > venture to say very few gov't reps would.
> 
> Right.  While I agree that the idea would be consistent with the TA
> mandate
> language, that at first blush it might sound reasonable given the
dearth
> of
> alternative mechanisms of external accountability, and that soft
oversight
> does not mean hard hierarchy, I can't see how the politics line up to
make
> it viable.  Which of the following players could be expected to
support
> requiring ICANN to report to the IGF: 1) the USG, 2) the EU, 3) other
OECD
> governments, 4) business, including all the major Internet-related
firms
> that have not bothered to participate in WSIS/IGF, 5) the
> technical/administrative nexus, 6) ICANN leadership, staff and
> constituencies (unless the oversight is really, really soft) 6) IGF
> leadership, 7) UN leadership (undoubtedly eager for more "UN power
grab"
> headlines, etc), 8) other international organizations concerned about
the
> possible precedent, etc...What are the incentives pro and con for each
of
> these players, what is the scenario under which consensus among them
all
> emerges?  I'm open to persuasion, but as with the framework convention
> idea,
> it's hard to identify the conditions under which a winning coalition
of
> players content with the status quo wouldn't just view this as an
> unwelcome
> Pandora's box and say no thanks, internal accountability to GAC and
other
> constituencies is sufficient.  And assuming the political support
could be
> lined up, then we have all the operational questions about how IGF as
> currently configured could manage the process, how would this impact
the
> IGF
> process more generally, what does it mean to report to an
anyone-can-come
> conference rather than an organization with a defined membership and
solid
> legal foundation, what obligations would ICANN have to do xyz because
a
> few
> participants stood up and said we think abc and how would those be
> enforced,
> etc.
> 
> Maybe IGP could write a second paper that puts some meat on the bones
to
> facilitate a more grounded discussion?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
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