[governance] US will push for open markets, free expression at ITU meeting | ITworld

[John Curran]

On Aug 5, 2012, at 5:10 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> ICANN is limited in the scope, see below.  ICANN does not govern the Internet. It is not the place to work out Internet governance policies as it only looks after a few of the policy areas identified in the WGIG 2005 Report [http://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf see pages 5-8] It says so too within the ICANN Articles of Incorporation, see excerpts below:
> In furtherance of the foregoing purposes, and in recognition of the fact that the Internet is an international network of networks, owned by no single nation, individual or organization, the Corporation shall, except as limited by Article 5 hereof, pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet by 
> (i) coordinating the assignment of Internet technical parameters as needed to maintain universal connectivity on the Internet; 
> 
> (ii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet Protocol ("IP") address space;
> 
>  (iii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet domain name system ("DNS"), including the development of policies for determining the circumstances under which new top-level domains are added to the DNS root system;
> 
>  (iv) overseeing operation of the authoritative Internet DNS root server system; and
> 
>  (v) engaging in any other related lawful activity in furtherance of items (i) through (iv).
> 
> ...

Salanieta - 

   You are correct; ICANN was envisioned to perform the very clearly defined task
   of coordination of technical parameters needed to keep the Internet running,
   including overseeing the development of related policies for the coordination
   of these parameters.  The recording of this intent can also be found in the
   formative Green and White papers which were developed to describe the 
   need and structure for the new organization.

   I think it is true to say that ICANN is a part of the governance system of the
   Internet, but that does not equate with it being "_the_ place to work out to work 
   out Internet governance policies" (emphasis added), implying the sole place to 
   do so, since there could easily be needed Internet governance policies which 
   have nothing to do with the coordination of the technical parameters of the Internet.

   Furthermore, coordination of technical parameters (and the policies needed for
   same) does not necessarily imply validity to define global consensus on any
   public policy issue that happens to impact the Internet.   For example, freedom
   of expression is a concept far greater than the Internet, so it would not be 
   reasonable for the global reference consensus statement on "Freedom of 
   expression as a basic human right" to be worked out solely by ICANN.  
   Last month, I noted the challenge  we face with respect to the scope of
   "Internet Governance" policies; it is very easily to define that scope to be
   far greater than the scope of the present institutions working in the Internet
   ecosystem (see attached email).

FYI,
/John

Disclaimers: My views alone.  Depend on my present location, email responses 
may be 13.8 late minutes as a result of propagation delay.
    

Begin forwarded message:

> From: John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org>
> Subject: Re: [governance] Oversight
> Date: July 1, 2012 12:20:14 PM EDT
> To: parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Reply-To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org>
> ...
> Let's recall one key statement from ICANN's core values:
> 
> "11. While remaining rooted in the private sector, recognizing that governments and public authorities are responsible for public policy and duly taking into account governments' or public authorities' recommendations."
> 
> Taking such recommendations into account _requires_ that there 
> is either a single consensus input received or indeed a high degree 
> of commonality among all of the recommendations received.   I do
> believe that ICANN must respect the guidance in these cases, but
> from what I can determine it is not in ICANN's mission to bring about
> consensus in social and public policy matters where none exists today.
> (and If ICANN had such amazing abilities, then we should have it work
> on world hunger and conflict before worrying about Internet matters...)
> ...
> If the public policy considerations that you reference are areas where we
> have commonly accepted and documented societal norms, then those 
> documents should be formally submitted into the policy development 
> processes and ICANN should be held accountable, per its core values,
> for taking them into consideration in setting policies for technical identifier
> coordination and management for the Internet.
> 
> If the public policy considerations that you reference are areas where we
> lack commonly accepted and documented societal norms, I would think
> that bringing governments, civil society, and businesses together on these 
> matters first would be a high priority, and a task much larger in scope that
> ICANN's mission.
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