In response to the questions about the political 
costs of delay (below), I think that nobody on 
this list (or anywhere else) has the faintest 
idea what US government policy (Pres + House + 
Senate) towards the transition (or anything else) 
might look like a year or two from now.  I 
certainly agree that delay would be a big 
mistake, if the goal is to achieve the transition at all costs.

But that's not the goal, in my eyes. The goal is 
to create an institution that can manage these 
resources in a reasonable way, for the next 
[many] years.  The CCWG reached a consensus on 
the structure of an institution that it believes 
will do that - although to be fair, it's actually 
just a sketch of that institution, with critical 
pieces yet to be fleshed out and added into the mix.

I don't pretend to understand anything about 
politics, but I do know that this is not only a 
"political" problem, it's also an "engineering" 
problem - corporate engineering.  The CCWG has 
designed a machine that it believes will be able 
to check its own excesses, and that will operate 
transparently, taking the views of all interested 
communities into account in making its decisions. 
It's astonishingly complicated, and it has never 
been tried before.  IT MIGHT WORK VERY WELL - I'm 
not disputing that, perhaps requiring only 
tweaking here and there, as Avri suggested.

But it might not.  Astonishingly complicated 
machines have an annoying habit of not 
functioning as advertised - at least, not at 
first, before they have been put through their 
paces.  It seems to me that it is ordinary 
prudence, to demand proof that the whole new 
infrastructure works before signing off on 
it.  The consequences if this machine fails could be very severe.

All I'm suggesting is that it would hardly seem 
unreasonable, to me, if the USG took the position 
that while it is signing off on the transition, 
it is doing so subject to a kind of probationary 
period that will enable us all to understand 
better whether and how it actually works. Perhaps 
other countries will view that as a terribly 
untrustworthy move, perhaps they won't - I do 
think it helps that it is, fundamentally, quite a reasonable position to take.

David


Mueller, Milton L wrote:
>MM  Do we know who the next NTIA and Congress 
>will work, in practice, on the ground? The 
>question answers itself. To push this off to the 
>next administration is to introduce a completely 
>new and unknown set of factors into the 
>situation – without in any way improving the 
>reforms.  [SNIP] And US Commerce Dept approval? 
>How revocable is that once we lose this 
>opportunity to get rid of it? Have you given that any thought?

William Drake wrote:
>WD:  Respect your views on the outstanding 
>issues, but am still concerned about the larger 
>political consequences.  So I have a couple 
>simple questions, if the transition is delayed as you suggest:
>1.  If Hillary somehow manages to get elected, 
>when do you expect the further process you want 
>would be completed and the political ducks would 
>be lined up in DC for the US to finally relinquish its role?
>2.  If Hillary somehow manages to lose to Il 
>Donald, in what decade do you expect the US would relinquish its role?
>3.  What do you think the “rest of the 
>world� governments that have been screaming 
>about the imperative to end the US role being 
>the number one Internet issue on the global 
>agenda will be doing in the meanwhile as we go 
>through the many cycles of community tweaking and US politics involved?

Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
>May I add two questions:
>
>1. If the IANA Transition is delayed what do you 
>expect from governments in the UNCSTD Working 
>Group on Enhanced Cooperation which will start 
>in September 2016 and will deliver a report to 
>the UN General Assembly (via CSTD and ECOSOC) in fall 2017?
>
>2. If the IANA Transition is delayed what do you 
>expect from the next ITU Plenipot scheduled for fall 2018 in Dubai?


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David G. Post
Volokh Conspiracy Blog http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/david-post
Book (ISO Jefferson's Moose)  http://tinyurl.com/c327w2n
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Publications & Misc. http://www.ssrn.com/author=537  http://www.davidpost.com
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