At 12:47 AM +0000 8/8/16, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> But I guess GAC has less well-defined institutional dynamics than ITU.
>>Is that
>> the difference you're getting at? -- I'm no expert on ITU either...)
>>
>> Or, are we now considering governments "stakeholders" too?  If so, why not
>> just make GAC a garden-variety SG in GNSO?  The "GSG" -- Government
>> Stakeholder Group?
>
>Bingo. That's what is happening.
>
>> I may not be expert in the implications of the term of art "multilateral"
>> but I honestly don't see much difference in ICANN being whip-tailed by
>>GAC or
>> ITU if the dynamic is comparable.  Can you elaborate on this distinction?
>
>The difference is that an ICANN completely dominated by governments is
>worse than the ITU because ICANN has global hierarchical power over the
>DNS, whereas as a treaty-based organization the ITU cannot make any
>sovereign member do something it doesn't want to do. When ICANN imposes
>rules on how DNS works however, it has global effect.



So at least I'm not misreading things that increased policy-making
influence by governments at ICANN is something to worry about.

I'm still trying to understand how GAC is not multilateral *internally*.

Is the danger that GAC want to inject multilateral dynamics into ICANN by
sneaking in through the multistakeholder door?  And basically turn ICANN
into an equivalent of a multilateral policy-making process?  Except more
powerful because GAC would end up creating "consensus" policy that becomes
universally applied globally rather than national opt-in?  So you're saying
that existing multilateral precedents are all basically opt-in, but this
would take multinational policy and step it up to an instance of actual
"world government" in a sense?  And that is not what is meant by
"multilateral"?

Maybe I'm just getting hung up on the MLM/MSM terminology...