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

[William Drake]

Hi Parminder,

On 2/9/08 1:08 PM, "Parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

> 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

Well ok, I guess stating a position and then just expecting it to build
political mass is one way to approach advocacy in a heatedly contested
space.  Another approach is to try to persuade people that it's both
functionally desirable and politically conceivable before expecting them to
embrace it. I was just asking to be persuaded, conversation before
conversion.  

> 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. 

Friendly skepticism properly received can also lead to reconsideration and
strengthening of advocacy positions, in the same way that academics send
draft papers out to their friends for a bit of hammering in order to
identify weak bits and debug.  I expect Team Syracuse gets that.  In
contrast, I'm kind of not getting your view of how this should work.  People
should simply suspend thought and get in line with any nominally progressive
proposal as is?  
 
> 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.

Sure I'd have liked a structured process and the institutional capacity to
carry it out.  But that's not going to happen for a number of reasons that
are not unrelated to what we're talking about, so any effort along these
lines would have to be pursued via other avenues.  Moreover, proposing to
assess only ICANN from this standpoint piles on additional burdens.
 
> 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.

Of course there is.  I think it'd be interesting to have an open ended
discussion about a range of options, including IGP's, for post-JPA and
related matters.  In fact, if enough people are going to be here on the
Monday prior to the consultation, I might be able to provide a conference
room at the institute and libations etc for a brainstorming session.  If
there's any interest...

Cheers,

Bill 
> 
>> -----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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