AW: [governance] U.N. takeover of the Internet must be stopped, U.S. warns

[parminder]

On Friday 01 June 2012 04:47 PM, parminder wrote:
> Hi Wolfgang,
>
> The first argument against continued US oversight of the ICANN is 
> political-democratic. I will respond to your specific points in 
> another email.
Now turning to some specific points.

You ask, what is our main problem with US oversight of ICANN. Well, the 
biggest one is, ICANN is a US nonprofit, subject to all laws of the US, 
big and small. In fact even if it wanted to, the executive branch of the 
government may not be able to protect ICANN from being made subject to 
all these US laws. Do you, or do you not, agree with this proposition? 
And as the Internet becomes the platform and infrastructure of such a 
big part of our global social, economic, cultural and political systems 
and structures, this situation is both completely untenable and 
unacceptable.

Anybody believing in democracy would not want to be subject to the laws 
in making of which s/he does not participate. At any time ICANN can be 
made to act as per US laws and US interest. You would have heard of the 
Internet Kill Switch legislation which at present seems to be shelved. 
It would have given US President executive control -- if one is to 
believe that he does not have it already - over all critical 
infrastructure of the Internet. One has no reason to believe that this 
excluded the ICANN and the authoritative root zone server. Well, before 
you start arguing that these security related sovereign fears are 
misplaced, you may want to explain that why, in that case, does US want 
to control the position of the chief security officer of the ICANN (or 
of the IANA contractee)? On what basis do you advocate that other 
countries simply ignore all such deeply serious matters and concerns? 
Can you guarantee that the next Afghanistan or Iraq invasion will not 
happen along with tampering of the concerned country domain spaces? 
Since, the US seems to be the only country that launches such unilateral 
aggressions, it is in fact the one country least qualified -- and not 
the most qualified, as you seem to argue - to sit over the control of 
the Internet's root.

Since you seem to be comfortable with the status quo, at the same time 
as you ignore the above issues, you exaggerate the problems with the 
alternatives. First of all, you have not engaged with a, non-typical-UN, 
international body's oversight possibility that I proposed, with 
regional representation, rotated among countries,and with the member 
being chosen through a broader process within the country though having 
some alignment with the concerned government as well. Also, as proposed 
by me, this new body will have only very limited functions, all of them 
clearly defined by due internationally legal process (unlike it is with 
the US at present). It would not require consensus to approve every root 
server entry, but perhaps a majority or some such arrangement. I can 
easily see the system working, at least as well as the present one.

Even the CIRP did not set out the precise manner in which oversight 
functions may be exercised, because it was a general 
conversation-starter proposal. In any case, nowhere it is proposed that 
every root server entry will require consensus. You are just making it 
up to argue your case. I am sure if the Indian government was to get 
into the specifics, it is mature and pragmatic enough to ensure a system 
that works. And it is my feeling that they will also consider an 
outside-the-UN oversight system of the kind I have proposed. Therefore 
your main argument against internationalizing oversight of CIRs just 
does not hold.

About the AoC, you know that US can rescind it any moment. In any case, 
why not enter a similar AoC with the UN? Will you agree? If not, can you 
please tell me the reason?

The simple truth is, many people here trust the US government more than 
they do the UN. I dont, and the overwhelming majority in the South 
doesnt. (Most people in the North may also not.)

Parminder

PS: BTW, as I have said before, without intending to offend anyone, I 
again beg to state that I personally do not think ICANN does very 
important work, at any rate not the most important work in global IG. My 
interest is rather more on the social, economic, cultural policies side.



>
> In order to seek democracy, one need not have to give instances of 
> what a dictator did wrong, which could be better in a democracy. 
> Inversely, it also hardly works to quote examples, in defense of 
> dictatorship, of how a dictator did not do something which he could 
> well have for his private gain or the gain of his cohorts. Every 
> dictator knows how to defend at least the illusion of legitimacy for 
> his rule! (This explains the US gov's action vis a vis .xxx, that you 
> hold out as such a shining example of US in the role of what you call 
> as the 'neutral steward(ship) of the Internet community".
>
> And the logic you use about how a body with more democratic 
> representation can cause confusion, stalemates and other such problems 
> can as easily be used against bringing in a democratic parliament 
> instead of a dictator. A few hundred politicians, all with individual 
> agendas, coming from very different backgrounds (often from warring 
> groups and tribes in a new democracy), with little training in the 
> high art of state-ship.... Well, this seems to presents a worse 
> picture even than the one you present for the UN, isnt it! But still 
> people, very knowledgeable people, give their lives to seek just this 
> kind of democracy.
>
> In fact, sometimes, only sometimes, the immediate results may actually 
> look worse than the condition before -- See, Egypt for instance, there 
> is acute lawlessness on the streets of Cairo, there is fear of 
> persecution of minorities, women are afraid of Shariat law being 
> imposed etc. Wise and knowledgeable people could have predicted this 
> general picture even before Tahrir square happened. But they went 
> ahead with the revolution. As famously said, the remedy for the ills 
> of democracy is more democracy. If we perceive certain kinds of 
> problems in democraticising the oversight of the Internet, we can 
> think of different alternative democratic institutional systems, and 
> also the struggle of improving systems would always be ongoing.But 
> please dont preach continued lordship of one country over all.
>
> parminder
>
>
>
> On Friday 01 June 2012 02:09 PM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
>> Hi Marilia,
>>
>> I fully support the spirit of your mail. Good and reasonable points. I wrote an article "Beyond ITU vs. ICANN" ten years ago and, as you have outlined, unfortunately the "good guys vs. bad guys" mechanism continues (very often without any justifiable reason or just for a domestic purpose (in the US) to be treated by an un-informed broader public as the "saver of the freedom of the Internet" in an election year). So far so god (or bad).
>>
>> But let me take your points one step further and comment on one concrete point:
>>
>> You say: "a) there is no way to justify US privilege position with ICANN. That needs to be changed;"
>>
>> I agree in principle but I would like to find out what in your opinion are the privileges your are talking about. IMHO the AoC has ended a lot of the "privileges" which were the subject of criticism in Tunis. The remaining "privileges" of the USG are
>> a. the right to authorize the publication of TLD zone files in the root (related to the IANA function which includes, inter alia, a trilateral contractual arrangement with ICANN and VeriSign, the manager of the Hidden Root Server) and
>> b. to have a permanent seat in the A&T Review team.
>>
>> Interestingly, the controversial .xxx case had a rather unnoticed sideeffect. It demonstrated that the USG executes its "authorization function" as a neutral stewart of the Internet community. As you remember, the USG - following pressure from the US Congress and parts of the US public opinion - was rather critical against .xxx. The EU Commissioner Nelly Kroes wrote a letter to Strickling just after the San Francisco ICANN meeting (where the ICANN Board voted in favour of .xxx) and encouraged him to postpone or stop the authorization of the publication of the .xxx zone file in the root. But NTIA, which is the responsible unit within the USG/DOC, followed just the ICANN/IANA procedure and respected the outcome of the (controversial) transparent and bottom up process executed by ICANN.
>>
>> What would be your proposal to change this procedure? Do you propose an alternative mechanism for the authorization of TLD zone files in the root? With the new gTLD programm we will have probably hundreds of controversial cases soon.  Ideas to transfer this function to an intergovernmental body (a UN like Internet Security Council as discussed by WGIG in 2005 or a G 12, as proposed by EU Commissioner Reding in 2010) proofed to be bad ideas. To give the proposed CIRP an authority to approve finally TLD strings (as it was indirectly intended in the Indian proposal which wanted to give oversight functions over ICANN to the CIRP, which would include certainly also the authorization issue) is obviously also a bad idea.
>>
>> To give the GAC - where all governments have an equal role - an "early warning" and "advice" option under the established new gTLD program seems to me reasonable. Do you believe this is not sufficient and another body should be established to make the final decision? What would happen if all the 2000 new gTLD proposals - after they are adopted by ICANN - would need an authorization decision backed by a consensus among the members of an intergovernmental council of 12, 51 or 190 UN member states? With other words, do you have any concrete idea how the existing (and working) mechanism for the authorization of TLD zone files in the root can be further improved (enhanced) respecting also the interests of developing countries and civil society in a better way without damaging the future development of the Internet?
>>
>> The second point: The permanent seat for the USG in one of the four AoC review teams. What is your proposal here? I agree fully, that the review sofar did not produce the expected results. The (mutlistakeholder and decentralized) review mechanism as such is an interesting innovation and has great potential to be developed into an oversight mechanisms with "hard teeth". The first round was done in a rush. Both the governmental representatives from China and the EU were not satisfied with the procedures. The outcome was rather weak and very general. Implementation of even this weak recommendations takes time. However lets wait what the other reviews teams will produce. We will have more knowledge if the four reviews are completed.
>>
>> A second round has to go far beyond. In my eyes, the "transparency and accountability" review is central and one should start already now to prepare for the second round which starts 2013/2014. The good thing is, that civil society (via the ALAC) has also a permanent seat in this review! Any concrete proposals how to improve this mechaism?
>>
>> Wolfgang
>>
>>    
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