Hello Sam & All,

taking a broad historical view,
- to begin with, the Internet was the realm of engineers, academics, military personnel;
- most sovereign states, because their civil servants came from law, macro-economics or political "science", did not grasp the potential of the Internet, and therefore left it to their technical ministerial departments (telecoms, industry...);
- businesses were quick to espouse the Internet, taking in their wake the necessary lawyers for trademarks and litigations, and this may have become the single most influential segment of the Internet eco-system;
- more recently, and for a variety of reasons (strengthen censorship, extend surveillance, streamle administrative tasks, reach the electorate more easily, most states are simply catching up. This is where we are today.

Against this background, it seems likely that most sovereign states will seek a greater role. That is evident in the GAC, but also more widely. One of the main areas of competition for them is representation of the public interest, where they generally do not take a favourable view of NGOs or other elements of civil society, because the latter occupy a space which, in political theory, belongs first and foremost to sovereign states.

Reports on the future of the Internet (Ilves Commission and others), the pursuit of a universal forum (IGF), various initiatives to enhance the multi-stakeholder model (MSM) (e.g. NetMundial Initiative), none of these proposes, nor will bring about, a lesser role of governments.

The challenge today is
- to recognize that sovereign states will not abandon what they see as their self-evident place in Internet governance;
- taking that as a given, how can we strengthen the MSM in a way that does not push states towards an alternative to MSM, such as national Intranets, i.e. terminating the single, universally compatible Internet as most of us know it today?

Jean-Jacques.







----- Mail original -----
De: "Sam Lanfranco" <[log in to unmask]>
À: [log in to unmask]
Envoyé: Mercredi 12 Août 2015 15:58:16
Objet: Re: [Policy] IANA transition and ICANN accountability proposal : NCSG comments



I have a shorter history observing the role of GAC inside ICANN, but a longer history of observing governments, and I am the position that the transition should take place keeping GAC pretty much in its existing advisory role where there are, and will be, continues pressures for role modification. It would open up a very dangerous and destabilizing struggle if “...the GAC dissented from whatever Dublin adopts”. 


We need to keep a collaborative element to the struggles for position within ICANN. Moving to a pure adversarial stance in this area would be a lose-lose recipe for disaster. 

Sam L.