Below is the statement by the government of Brazil (Jandyr), in this 
morning's GAC session.

frt rgds

--c.a.

============

Brazil - At the outset let me take this opportunity to praise ICANN for 
the cross-community efforts currently being undertaken in the field of 
the IANA stewardship transition and ICANN’s accountability.

I’m compelled however to reiterate some general concerns that the 
Government of Brazil has already expressed in the context of the CWG and 
the CCWG.

And today let me focus in only one of those concerns, which regards the 
concept of jurisdiction.

In our view, this subject hasn’t deserved the appropriate attention so 
far, even though it should be a key aspect of ICANN’s accountability 
process.

As Ira Magaziner pointed out at the opening ceremony of ICANN 52, and I 
quote: “ ONE OF THE THINGS WE SET UP IN ICANN WAS THAT IT WOULD BE 
SELF-FINANCING BECAUSE THAT WAY IT WOULD AVOID CAPTURE BY GOVERNMENTS OR 
BY COMMERCIAL INTERESTS”.

In our view, however, despite recognized efforts to spread its 
operational functions across the globe, ICANN still remains both US and 
business-centric, which is not exactly what we, as a developing country, 
would expect from an organization that should be truly global and serve 
the global public interest.

That being said, we suggest that when the CWG and the CCWG seek for 
legal advice for their work, they should explore modalities that would 
allow ICANN’s operations and accountability mechanisms to be as 
independent as possible from a single country's legislation and/or 
judicial institutions.

It might defeat the purpose for which new and more robust accountability 
measures are to be implemented if they do not contribute to strengthen 
stakeholders’ perception – in particular of governments – that ICANN is 
evolving towards a truly global organization.

We are sailing unchartered waters in here and innovative 
multistakeholder models will certainly be necessary.

Perhaps when dealing with such a complex issue we should be as creative 
as those who invented the Internet.

But we believe we have no option since properly handling the issue of 
jurisdiction will both strengthen ICANN and the multistakeholder model 
in which Internet Governance has successfully developed so far.