[governance] Does it matter which legal system ICANN operates under?

[Keith Davidson]

On 14/06/2013 7:50 p.m., Riaz K Tayob wrote:
> Techincally I have to defer.
>
> The problem of unimportance is belied by the variously vicious and
> polite objections (I can provide details but it does not matter now)
> from this list to WSIS and IGF where we have the proverbial 'dogs of
> war' set upon us every time we raise this matter...?
>
> My view is that this is a political rather than technical matter...
> swept under the carpet but getting sexy in this age of cummupence...

The WSIS / ITU / UN / IGF solution to change the US Governments 
unilateral control over the IANA database is to add more governments 
through various suggested formulas to create a multilateral controlling 
body. There are two aspects to this that cause me intense discomfort.

1. If the idea of "1 Government = bad" is true, then the idea that "more 
Governments = better" flies in the face of logic, and in fact if 1 = bad 
then surely more = worse...

2. It is true that the US Government originally invested massively in 
time and dollars in the development of the Internet - although not 
deliberately, but through the military and academic communities, and 
therefore is justified to take a patriarchal role in the management of 
the Internet's unique identifiers. And generally the US Government has 
acted fairly and appropriately, and is gradually enabling greater 
autonomy to ICANN, as ICANN proves itself more capable of assuming 
greater control.

It is hard to find actual and significant examples where the US 
Government has not acted in the best interests of the global internet 
community, or acted purely from self interest.

And it is getting easier to find examples of the US Government moving 
towards enabling ICANN greater autonomy. For examples:
- The change from Contract to Memorandum of Understanding to the current 
"affirmation of commitments" as the agreement between the USG and ICANN
- The latest IANA contract negotiations went through two stages of 
public consultation, and the final contract with ICANN for the IANA 
function was much modified to take account of the input from the global 
Internet community - particularly in terms of recognising sovereign 
rights of nation states.

And actually multistakeholder control is what we all eventually seek - 
the Internet is much too important to be another plaything / political 
football of governments - so it behoves us to ensure that 
multistakeholderism, with business, government, civil society and the 
technical and academic communities jointly and equally participating is 
the appropriate future of "ruling the root".

Cheers

Keith

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