Hi,
I fully agree with Bill that a delay will have (negative) effects. It will strengthen the position of all governments which have a problem with the multistakeholder approach. With other words, it will achieve the oppositite of what some members of the US Congress want to achieve: Less governmental role in managing the DNS. The reality will be that we will have a greater governmental role in DNS Management. In the theory of political science this is called the "unintended side effects". And a failed IANA transition will have a lot of unintended side effects.
The promise for the transition started in 1998. 18 years is a long time. As Andrew Sullivan has said in the recent hearing: This is the "slowest rush" in the histoty of the Internet. With the "Marrakesh Consensus" on the table, what will change until 2018? ICANN and its community will be in the same situation in 2018 as it is now in 2016. And, BTW, the accountability package will be implemented anyhow, regardless whether the stewardship role of the NTIA in authorizing the publication of zone files in the root transits to ICANN on Septem,ber, 30, 2016 or not. But in case of a delayed transiton, the environment for ICANN will change. Many governments, probably the majority of the governments of the UN member states, will go back to paragraph 68 of the Tunis Agenda where the US governments made an indirect promise to end its stewardship role by agreeing to the language: "We recognize that all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of the Internet." Those "other governments" will argue that waiting for ten years is enough. They will argue that the US government is not ready to accept an "equal role" with other governments. They will argue that this is against the UN jus cogens principle of "sovereign equality". They will further enhance the concvept of national "Cybersovereignty". And they will look for alternative solutions in different (intergovernmental) venues: WGEC/UNCSTD/ECOSOC/UNGA starts in September 2016. The next ITU Plenipot is in 2018 in Dubai. And there is BRICS and G 20.
Ambassador Gross quoted twice the Moscow Communique from April 2016, signed by the foreign ministers (not GAC members!!!) from China, India and Russia. The Communique does not only say that there is a “need to internationalize Internet governance and to enhance in this regard the role of International Telecommunication Union.” The Ministers are also "convinced that all states should participate in its evolution and functioning on an equal footing." And they "underlined the primary role of the States in promoting security, stability, and economic cooperation in the use of ICTs." They also recognized "the need to ensure Internet governance based on multilateralism, democracy, transparency with multi-stakeholders in their respective roles and responsibilities".
The message here is clear:
1. we want to have an equal role with the US government
2. we want to have governmental leadership
3. we consult - if needed - with non-governmental stakeholders from the private sector, civil society and the technical community but we do not share "decision making" with them.
If the transition is completed in September 2016, the first point is gone. In a new ICANN all governments are equal. All governments - US, China, Russia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Ghana, Malaysia - have a veto right. Within the GAC all governments negotiate on equal footing. And if they reach "cosensus" and give "cosensus advice" to the Board, the Board will take this seriously into consideration. Governments are an important stakeholder. But they do not have the final and sole decision making capacity. The Board continues to have the capacity to reject even a GAC consensus advice. Such a rejection would lead to a consultation process where the ICANN Board has to give a rationale to the public and the broader community why a GAC advice is rejected. This comes very close to the spirit of the WGIG/WSIS Internet Governance definition ("shared decision making procedures") which was reiterated recently in the WSIS +10 Outcome Document in December 2015 in New York. With other words, if the tranistion is completed this would be a triumph for the multistakeholder approach and it would make life much harder for some governments to continue with 2 & 3: "governmental leadership" and "stakeholder consultation" (instead of "sharing decision making").
If the transition is delayed, if the US government would continue to play a "special role", other governments would feel as "not equal" both in the GAC and elsewhere. The would use this point - with references to the Tunis Agenda - to justify their arguments for 2 & 3. A delay would signal to the rest of the world that even the US government has no confidence into the multistakeholder process and the only bodies which have the legitimacy to make decisions related to Internet Governance policies are parliaments and governments.
However, even if the transition is completed, this is not the end of the story. Within ICANN there is a big challenge to further enhance the multistakeholder mechanisms. Key words here are geographical diversity and strengthening the capacity of (non-commercial/SME) users and civil society. We have to discuss how stakeholders within ICANN will be treated on equal footing (in their respective roles). There is a lot to do in WS 2 (and WS 3).
The good news for ICANN is that the role of governments in DNS Management is now fixed. But this doesn´t say anything about the future Internet Governance battles in the broader ecosystem. Remember the WGIG definition which was designed as a "broad definition", much more than "names & numbers". And here we will see soon the same battles we had within and around ICANN the last years. The G 7 Summit Meeting is end of this week in Japan. The BRICS summit is in summer in India. The G 20 summit is in early September in Hangzhou. And the UNGA starts end of September in New York. The IANA contract expires September 30. How we discuss and handle the role of governments and non-governmental stakeholders in all those UN bodies which are dealing now with Internet Governance? A successful IANA Transition will produce good arguments for enhanced multistakeholder cooperation. A delayed IANA Transition will the innovative multistakeholder model push back fro a long time. So let´s watch carefully what the unintended side effects will be.
Wolfgang
+ 1
On 5/25/2016 9:42 AM, William Drake wrote:
> Hi
>
> I strongly disagree that a delay will not help anyone. It will very
> much help the governments of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, et al
> to convince some of the vast number of developing and transitional
> country governments that have been on the fence that the whole
> multistakeholder enterprise is just window dressing for US hegemony
> and that they now must urgently explore every national and
> multilateral option to strengthen their 'cybersovereignty' and
> insulation from the dreaded GAFA etc. The transition fails, we will
> be dealing with massive ripple effects across multiple issue spaces
> for years to come. There are geopolitical reasons NCUC members have
> advocated the US giving up its role since at least a decade ago in the
> WSIS meetings. The hope was to 'remove the target' so governments
> could maybe focus instead on ways to deal with real issues that impact
> access to and use of the Internet. The 'delay' makes the target much
> much bigger, and if somehow the US political process manages to make
> Il Donald the president, the target will grow by orders of magnitude
> and fragmentation will become an ever more relevant concern. I guess I
> shouldn't complain since I live in Geneva and might get to attend lots
> more bitterly divided UN meetings etc, so can keep as busy as a
> Beltway Bandit.
>
> Anyway, here's the link to the letter from Rubio and four other
> Republican senators saying that the US should retain control until
> after the election.
> http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=files.serve&File_id=96B86CF4-58BE-4E5A-A20A-C9D3D9A0A7CE
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill
>
>
>> On May 25, 2016, at 08:33, James Gannon <[log in to unmask]
>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>
>> I agree delay is not going to help anyone, 'testing' the plan will
>> bring us nowhere as the very powers that people have concerns over
>> and wish to test will likely not be used in any reasonable testing
>> period. We will likely not have to spill the board, file community
>> IRPs against ICANN or take recourse to the California courts, and to
>> insinuate otherwise is playing to the people who like to hear the
>> media spin reels around the transition.
>>
>> Our proposal is sound, is based in strong governance and law, and is
>> ready to be executed. We either believe in the ability of the
>> community to build design and execute or we don't.
>>
>> I do.
>>
>> -James
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 25/05/2016, 06:55, "NCSG-Discuss on behalf of Dorothy K. Gordon"
>> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> on behalf of [log in to unmask]
>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>
>>> There will always be issues that can be used to avoid the
>>> transition. Delay is really not going to help in this case. I
>>> believe delay will kill this, and we will look back with regret if
>>> it does not go forward now.
>>> best regards
>>> DG
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Ron Wickersham" <[log in to unmask]
>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>> To: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2016 5:11:00 AM
>>> Subject: Re: great opening statement by Brett
>>>
>>> i'm not convinced that going slow is any kind of attempt to kill the
>>> transistion. i share the concerns Ed and Kathy have enumerated, and
>>> am extremely uncomfortable with the important items that were shuffled
>>> off into workstream 2 just to get these contentious and very important
>>> issues off the table. dividing the work up is ok, but get the whole
>>> work stream parts 1 and parts 2 and if need be parts 3 and 4 resolved
>>> before the actual transition.
>>>
>>> as both a NCUC and NCSG member as well as a USA citizen, i don't see
>>> how my representatives can approve a half-finished plan where the
>>> stakeholders have not resolved important issues -- the only thing
>>> the stakeholders have addressed is how to divide the work into two
>>> streams and agreed on the first part only.
>>>
>>> not every one who shares these same concerns is a USA citizen, these
>>> concerns are not US centric at all. and with the change in leadership
>>> of ICANN in the middle of the process affects the continuity of the
>>> deliberations and adds additional uncertinty.
>>>
>>> i'm on the side of proceeding more slowly. a finished good plan that
>>> is agreed (really a compromise) between all stakeholders will stand on
>>> its own merit and will succeed.
>>>
>>> by overloading with too many separate, sometimes overlapping, groups
>>> makes it impossible for Non-commercial volunteers to participate in
>>> all the important steps. still we can recognize if the final plan
>>> is insufficient to address our valid interests, so we have to see the
>>> end product to adequately judge our position.
>>>
>>> -ron
>
>
> *************************************************************
> William J. Drake
> International Fellow & Lecturer
> Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
> University of Zurich, Switzerland
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> (direct),
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> (lists),
> www.williamdrake.org <http://www.williamdrake.org>
> /The Working Group on Internet Governance - 10th Anniversary Reflections/
> New book at http://amzn.to/22hWZxC
> *************************************************************
>
--
Matthew Shears | Director, Global Internet Policy & Human Rights Project
Center for Democracy & Technology | cdt.org
E: [log in to unmask] | T: +44.771.247.2987
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