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

tijani.benjemaa at planet.tn tijani.benjemaa at planet.tn
Fri Jun 1 10:51:53 EDT 2012 

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Tijani BEN JEMAA
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Fédération Mondiale des Organisations d’Ingénieurs
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-----Message d'origine-----
De : governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] De la part de Avri Doria
Envoyé : vendredi 1 juin 2012 13:47
À : IGC
Objet : Re: [governance] U.N. takeover of the Internet must be stopped, U.S.
warns

Hi,

I think Parminder makes good points on why ICANN must become independent of
the US government.  

I personally beleive, and have believed for a long time, that it should have
a host country agreement with an appropriate host country.

>> 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.)

Just to be clear I don't trust either.   
I am all in favor of the US efforts to stop anything that even hints at a UN
takeover of any element of control, be it over IPv4/6, TLDs, ASNs or IETF
numbers.
But I also stand against continued US control over these things.

I still maintain the point I made in WGIG with various others, we do not
need any form of national or international governmental oversight for ICANN.
What we need is well established multistakeholder oversight (I think there
were even several proposals at the time of WSIS and since as to how this
could be established).

The main operational problem with making a transition to a structure other
than a US corporate structure is how maintain its contractual agreements
until new form of regulatory control over Registries and Registrars can be
established.  Currently those serving the GTLD market are 'regulated' via
contract and these are specifically California based contracts.  One of the
advantages of moving to a form of regulation that is not California contract
based is that it will allow for regulation to be extended over the ccTLDs
who rightly bristle at the notion of being regulated by a US corporation and
thus are free to do whatever they please.  Unfortunately , however, I don't
think anyone yet has made a coherent proposal for how that transition, from
regulation via contract to international multistakeholder regulation could
be made. 

avri


On 1 Jun 2012, at 08:11, parminder wrote:

> 
> 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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