[governance] JPA - final draft for comments

[Milton L Mueller]

Ian, 
I missed a day of comment and am not understanding how we went from a good statement with some debate on the margins to the meaningless stuff you have below. 
I can assure you that a statement as proposed below would have utterly no impact on the discussion in Washington. I'd recommend reverting back a step to the document and working out those minor differences. 
________________________________________
From: Ian Peter [ian.peter at ianpeter.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:52 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] JPA - final draft for comments

Folks, having read the various responses, I think our only path forward is a much reduced response which concentrates on principles. So at this stage what I would propose for a consensus call in 24 hours or so is what follows. I would be happy however for someone else to suggest a wider ranging draft covering additional points, but I have come to the conclusion that anything we are likely to agree on at this stage would only take emphasis away from the main points we want to make.

I have dropped all references to models and the varying arguments as to whether the JPA should continue or not. I do suggest that people make individual submissions to cover their concerns in this area. For IGC as a whole, I think we have to aim for something much simpler.

My new suggested draft follows. Let me know what you think of this approach, and of course any suggested improvements in wording.

Ian Peter



The Internet Governance Caucus is a global coalition of civil society and non governmental organisations and individuals actively involved the UN’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF) process. Formed during the lead up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), our mission is to provide a forum for discussion, advocacy, action, and for representation of civil society contributions in  Internet governance processes. We have several hundred members, with a wide spread of geographic representation; more about our coalition can be found at www.igcaucus.org.

We are thankful for the opportunity to comment on the JPA with ICANN, and  respectfully submit as  follows.

In responding to your call for comments, we are mindful of the WSIS principles, which " recognize that Internet governance, carried out according to the Geneva principles, is an essential element for a people-centred, inclusive, development-oriented and non-discriminatory Information Society”. We also recognise the need for high levels of global co-operation from all stakeholder groups to ensure Internet stability and security.

Irrespective of whether the JPA continues or not, we believe that certain principles outlined below need to be embedded in ICANN’s operation. We believe these should be covered by an undertaking by ICANN to perpetuate in its constitution, by laws, or some similar accountability mechanism, various principles which follow. The principles need to be embedded in such a way as to ensure they cannot easily be changed to exclude any stakeholder group. The principles which need to be permanently embedded are:

•      bottom up co-ordination


•      balanced multi stakeholder representation, including civil society interests and Internet users


•      ensuring the stability of the Internet


•      transparency


•      appropriate accountability mechanisms


•      continuing evolution of an effective and appropriate governance model which is multilateral, multistakeholder, democratic, and transparent


•      decision making driven by the public interest

We also propose to replace "private sector management" with “multistakeholder management”, in line with the multistakeholder principle which has evolved from the World Summit on the Information Society and the Internet Governance Forum process which the US Government has supported, and which is  an important facet, we believe, of effective internet governance  arrangements.

We think the establishment of firm principles to guide the evolution of a model is the appropriate way to proceed. This should explicitly recognize that ICANN is a global governance institution with regulatory authority over an industry (domain name registration) and over critical resources (IP addresses, root servers and addresses). The standards of due process, rights, and accountability that apply to ICANN must be developed with these facts in mind.






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