[governance] [bestbits] US Control over ICANN

[Guru Acharya]

To put the case in point, do look at the chart made by Avri a while back
that graphically highlights the process of separability. The board of ICANN
can reject separability even before the discussion of changing PTI as the
IANA contractor can be initiated. Ironically, PTI is a wholly owned
subsidiary of ICANN, and it also receives the IANA Contract from ICANN, so
the concept of separability may in many situations violate the ICANN boards
fiduciary responsibility. How much weaker could separability have been
envisaged? In practice, PTI is the new home of IANA forever!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kmDLv0yF41lb9OBlCKnl6o3TMps6AlTF8Njso5zcW9w/edit#slide=id.p

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 1:48 PM, Guru Acharya <gurcharya at gmail.com> wrote:

> I absolutely agree with Pranesh's stand. The inherent political objective
> of the IANA Transition was to remove the unilateral control of the United
> States (executive, judicial and legislative) over ICANN and the IANA
> Functions. What we have achieved is quite the opposite making the situation
> worse than before. While we may have curtailed the ability of the USG to
> award the contract, we have effectively made ICANN (and PTI) the permanent
> home of IANA. The IANA Transition has literally gifted IANA to a US
> Corporation in perpetuity owing to the weak form of separability adopted by
> the CWG, thus making it even more susceptible to judicial and legislative
> interference by the US. Even the names steward for awarding the contract is
> a US Corporation. At least previously, the USG could have (theoretically)
> removed IANA from ICANN and awarded the IANA Functions Contract to a non-US
> entity. I think we got lost in the legal complexities of the transition and
> effectively lost sense of the larger political objective.
>
> In any case, at the very least, the IGC and BestBits should consider
> adopting a position for further reducing US control. This is possible
> through multiple means without having an effect on security and stability.
> For example, this could be achieved in the form of building redundancy to
> PTI. By redundancy, I mean a new corporation in Geneva that duplicates PTI.
> Both PTI(California) and PTI(Geneva) would perform the IANA Functions in
> parallel and duplicate each others work. In case of judicial or legislative
> interference by the US, the multistakeholder community could stop IANA in
> PTI(California) and make PTI(Geneva) the authoritative IANA. At the same
> time, the community could re-initiate redundancy by introducing a
> PTI(Morocco) in case the government in Geneva loses sense of the larger
> picture. The financial expense of maintaining the redundancy is negligible
> in comparison to the political costs of government interference. We already
> have a IANA (PTI) budget for this year, making a social cost benefit
> analysis an easy task.
>
> While I propose one model, other constructive frameworks are also
> feasible. The IGC and BestBits need to adopt a broader position of
> continuing its fight to reduce US interference.
>
> On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 3:14 AM, Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>> In 2005 at WSIS, here are some of the demands made by the Civil Society
>> Internet Governance Caucus:
>>
>> “ICANN will negotiate an appropriate host country agreement to replace
>>> its California Incorporation, being careful to retain those aspects of its
>>> California Incorporation that enhance its accountability to the global
>>> Internet user community.
>>> "ICANN's decisions, and any host country agreement, must be required to
>>> comply with public policy requirements negotiated through international
>>> treaties in regard to, inter alia, human rights treaties, privacy rights,
>>> gender agreements and trade rules. …
>>> "It is also expected that the multi-stakeholder community will observe
>>> and comment on the progress made in this process through the proposed
>>> [Internet Governance] Forum."
>>>
>>
>> https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/sca/hbf-29.doc
>>
>> Do the IGC membership disavow this stand?
>>
>> And what do the membership of allied civil society groupings like Best
>> Bits think about this, given that not just ICANN but even the new
>> "Post-Transition IANA" is currently set to be incorporated as a California
>> corporation?
>>
>> ~ Pranesh
>>
>> --
>> Pranesh Prakash
>> Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society
>> http://cis-india.org | tel:+91 80 40926283
>> sip:pranesh at ostel.co | xmpp:pranesh at cis-india.org
>> https://twitter.com/pranesh
>>
>>
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>
>
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