[governance] US Congrerss & JPA

[Milton L Mueller]

Thanks for the interesting analysis, Wolfgang. Comments of mine below

> -----Original Message-----

> 2. DoC/ICANN disagrees with the congressional recommendation
> This could lead to a very difficult debate, first of all within the US and
> for the Obama Administration. It would get support from the EU and other
> nations (including President Medwejew and the Chinese government). However
> it would be not enough to say "No" to the US Congress, it would need also
> an answer to the "How"-question.

I am not sure what you mean by the "how question." If you mean that DoC and the Obama admin have to figure out how to avoid doing what Congress wants, that is easy. Until and unless Congress passes a law (and that raises more problems for a US-centric position than you might think) DoC can do whatever it wants. 

If you mean that DoC has to figure out what to replace the JPA with, again I see no problem here. It can take the advice of IGP (yeh, they do that a lot, eh?) and instigate an international agreement; it can extend the JPA, it can let it expire and do nothing. What matters is the policy they are pursuing. 

> 3. DoC/ICANN tries to find a "middle of the road" compromise
> Here we could see a "creative innovation" which would on the one hand feed
> the illusion that ICANN remains on its road to an accountable but
> independent stewart of the global Internet community but would on the
> other hand strengthen the existing links with the US and its government

This is a very likely outcome, but I cannot fathom why you call it "creative innovation." It's basically the status quo. Indeed, it doesn't sound that different from what Congress advocated. 


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