[governance] JPA

[Parminder]

Hi All

I agree that we should try to develop an IGC statement on this, and my 
apologies for not contributing to this thread earlier. It had to do with 
the set of complex issues involved in answering the basic question - 
should JPA be extended or not. The obviously corollary of this question 
is - if JPA is not extended what happens then.

We have been discussing this issues with a couple of people and I have 
great sympathy with the APC's draft/ possible position  submitted 
earlier by Willie, and the comments of Milton and Bill, all of which 
speak about the problems associated with a 'free-float' ICANN rid of any 
political oversight.

I argued many times earlier we are not in a favor of a free-float ICANN, 
with its industry -led 'governance' system. We are strongly against any 
industry-led governance systems in any area of crucial public Interest, 
which includes IG and CIR management. We think that it is  a dangerous 
model for global governance, and supporting such a model - directly or 
indirectly - can have grave consequences for the democratic fibre of our 
societies.

However, we are as much against US hegemony, and unilateral control 
exercised through the JPA.

The right situation is a globally democratic oversight body with ICANN 
doing technical management work subject to its oversight, which is 
rule-based and not ad hoc as in case of GAC. And the best way to get 
such a oversight body and its directive principles is through some kind 
of treaty/ convention/ framework convention. The process of such treaty/ 
convention/ framework convention and the resulting oversight body has to 
sufficiently open and multistakeholder  - the exact manner and extent of 
which will be a subject of discussions / negotiations (however I do 
think WGIG models have some useful leads). The 'enhanced cooperation' 
framework has likely application here. Anyway, this is a bit beside the 
point of our present task.

Now, I do understand that IGC wont agree to any degree of granularity on 
this issue, and we should do our best to develop a common statement 
which is still meaningful.

My proposal is that if we can state that we are equally opposed to an 
arrangement under US's unilateral control (JPA) and an industry-led 
self-governance system (which would ICANN be as a free-float) we perhaps 
have a basis for us to agree on.

This means that ICANN should do technical management subject to 
oversight of a legitimate international body.

How we reach that 'ideal situation' and what is the interim arrangements 
then becomes the key questions. As we go along this path the chances of 
agreement within the caucus are lesser, and so, if necessary, we can 
make our statement increasingly broad/ diffuse over these points. I 
have, in an earlier paragraph,  stated  how this 'ideal situation' may 
be reached (some kind of treaty/ convention/ framework convention). I 
dont expect caucus agreement on it, but do propose a discussion on this.

That brings us to the question of interim arrangement before the ideal 
situation is reached - extending JPA or a free-float ICANN. Internally, 
we are  still deliberating on this. However, we are ready to consider 
either position as a possible basis of a common caucus statement, as 
long as we mention that we are equally against US hegemony (or 
unilateral control0  as much as against industry led self-governance 
system.

We also have interest in exploring/ proposing the option of a 'judicial 
body' for adjudication and hearing appeals on CIR management and 
connected issues, though this proposal will need to developed further.

We hope that the above may be of some value for the co-coordinators 
driving this important process of seeking an IGC statement on the JPA issue.

Parminder


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