John,
Your principal issue with the Oversight Board we proposed is that - it
seeks to ensure that ICANN works as per international law and legally
developed policies, rather than, as you say is the present oversight
function, merely ensure that ICANN fulfils its mandate properly. My
response is as follows.
One, the new IANA contract seeks a public interest justification for any
root modification, and that directly puts IANA authourity holder - the
US government - in a position of making judgements over what constitutes
public interest, which is a much more unclear term, and open to
subjective interpretations, than seeking adherence to international law
and legally developed and communicated international policies etc. So,
if your bottom line is - dont go beyond the current US oversight
function, I am fine with it. But in our proposal, we are being clearer
(and milder) than the current US oversight function is.
Second, I understand it is already ICANN's self-defined mandate to work
as per international law. Isnt it. We are just reinforcing it. I mean,
it should be something higher than the ICANN's own authority to change
this particualr mandate. They cant simply mandate themselves one day not
to have to work as per international law.
However, I am happy to change the language and role of the mandate of
the proposed oversight board to keep it as close to the current
oversight role as played by the US governemnt at present. we can put in
an agreed text , at a general principle level say, that the role of the
proposed global oversight board will be exactly as played by the US
governemnt at present in its oversight authority. That that work for you.
Lastly, you have a objection to the secondary advisory role given to the
same body (the proposed global oversight board) with regard to IETF and
other technical standards bodies. We, the group that proposed this
statement, strongly feel that the time has come that IETF kind of so
called open processes have some kind of an institutional international
advisory board that can regularly bring in public policy perspectives to
such bodies. We are very clear that this role is indeed strictly
advisory. This will also benefit the technical standards bodies a lot,
and so forth.
But for the present purpose, to get a consensus, we can entirely remove
the advisory role for such a proposed body from the mandate. And just
have a global oversight board with exactly the same mandate, role and
authourity as is exercised by the UG government with regard to ICANN/
IANA function. We can just agree to this particular language.
Meanwhile however I do remember that you have regularly mentioned - and
it appears in ARIN's response to WGEC as well - that technical community
will want clearly laid out international law and public polices, at a
relatively higher/ general level, and would welcome any effort in this
direction. A global oversight board, constituted properly, and
relatively insulated from political subversion, will be able to do
precisely that. Otherwise the canvass of international law and pulbic
policies can be too spread out and diffuse to make propoer sense to
those invovled with day to day technical operations pertaining to the
Internet. A properly constituted and mandated oversight board would in
fact do what you, and evidently, AIRN has been asking for - clear policy
frameworks, but any policy body staying at more than an arms length from
day to day operations. Such a pulbic policy interface is much better
than say the ad hoc interventions like those done by GAC at present,
completely dependent on the political muscle of the invovled
country(ies) but with no clear documented legal/ policy basis.
So that this proposed global oversight board does not abuse its
authority, and works within its narrowly circumscribed role, its
decisions should be subject to be appealed to with the Intenrational
Court of Justice, which should set up a special bench for Internet
issues of this kind. All this is easily plausible, given just a little
political will.
parminder
On Wednesday 09 October 2013 11:22 AM, John Curran wrote:
> On Oct 8, 2013, at 10:29 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net
> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>
>>> Again, it is a call for globalization of ICANN and IANA functions,
>>> not a plan for
>>> doing such... I do believe that we're all using the term
>>> globalization to mean
>>> "free from one specific country's jurisdiction/governance".
>>
>> Thanks for that clarification. Now that we agree that we are all for
>> globalisation of ICANN and IANA function, and are building consensus
>> what we mean by such globalisation, and what we dont mean, it is a
>> promising start.
>
> Indeed.
>
>>> Is the new "Internet Technical Oversight and Advisory Board" a
>>> component of
>>> the 'new UN body', or an distinct entity?
>>
>> It is not a new UN body. It is standalone. And we propose novel non-
>> or semi-political composition of it, or as we call it, a techno-
>> political composition. I am cut pasting the entire relevant text
>> below. Advice is welcome. As mentioned one can consider other ways of
>> filling the membership - say, half the members can be from regional
>> registries, and other from technical organisations from countries by
>> rotation.... Many such possibilities exist - to globalise ICANN/IANA
>> without exposing it to potential political harm.
>
> Given that the role is oversight, why not make it completely open and
> transparent?
> i.e. make the organizations that are doing policy development in this
> model actually
> undergo independent third party audits of their compliance to a set of
> principles and
> then have the results posted and discussed publicly? Is there a need
> for only a
> select community to participate in the oversight?
>
>> The following is the text with regard to the proposed 'Internet
>> Technical Oversight and Advisory Broad'. We are cognizant that this
>> isnt the perfect proposal, but one needs to make a start somewhere.
>> ...
>>
>> The Internet technical oversight and advisory board will seek to
>> ensure that the various technical and operational functions related
>> to the global Internet are undertaken by the relevant organizations
>> as per international law and public policy principles developed by
>> the concerned international bodies.
>
> The mission statement above is very interesting; it definitely
> encompasses much more
> hands-on direction of ICANN than the present oversight model.
>
>> With regard to ICANN, the role of this board will more or less be
>> exactly the same as exercised by the US government in its oversight
>> over ICANN.
>
> Umm.. I would beg to differ - the current oversight does indeed focus
> on making sure that
> ICANN fulfills its obligations, but that does not presently include
> the phrase "as per ... public
> policy principles developed by the concerned international bodies."
>
> An _oversight_ role should be about ICANN fulfilling its mission, yet
> you've effectively
> set a charter for this Internet Technical Oversight and Advisory Board
> which indirectly
> _changes_ ICANN's mission by making it subject to public policies
> "principles" of vague
> and uncertain origin.
>
>> As for the decentralized Internet standards development mechanisms,
>> like the Internet Engineering Task Force, these self organizing
>> systems based on voluntary adoption of standards will continue to
>> work as at present. The new board will have a very light touch and
>> non-binding role with regard to them.
>
> Changing the oversight of ICANN is unrelated to some form of oversight
> over IETF; yet
> this appears conflated (albeit in a non-binding role)... this is both
> unnecessary and creates
> significant risk.
>
>> It will bring in imperatives from, and advise these technical
>> standards bodies on, international public policies, international law
>> and norms being developed by various relevant bodies.
>
> If there are truly international public policies laws, mandates or
> norms, the technical standards
> bodies are quite capable of considering them in development efforts,
> and does not need any
> intermediary.
>>
>> For this board to be able to fulfill its oversight mandate, ICANN
>> must become an international organization, without changing its
>> existing multistakeholder character in any substantial manner. It
>> would enter into a host country agreement with the US government
>> (if ICANN has to continue to be headquartered in the US). It
>> would have full immunity from US law and executive authority, and
>> be guided solely by international law, and be incorporated under
>> it. Supervision of the authoritative root zone server must also
>> be transferred to this oversight broad. The board will exercise
>> this role with the help of an internationalized ICANN.
>>
>> This board will also advise the afore-mentioned new public policy
>> body on technical matters pertaining to the Internet policy
>> making, as well as take public policy inputs from it.
>>
> Apparently, this Board is also accepting public policy _inputs_ (not
> adopted norms or mandates)
> and will in some manner, use these in the oversight of ICANN? This is
> not an _oversight_ role,
> this appears to be direct supervision of ICANN's mission. Was any
> consideration given of a true
> oversight body/role?
>
> /John
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