Thanks for this, Milton. Besides your points and relevant comments already made by Adam on the accountability issue, there is another point which ought to be considered: with or without the JPA, ICANN will remain as a US non-profit corporation based in California -- ie, a US national corporation under US laws. So without the JPA it will not automatically "denationalize", of course. This would be a relevant first step, but a lot needs to be done after this to make it truly autonomous from any State -- a true international organization. []s fraternos --c.a. Milton L Mueller wrote: > A debate is developing over the future of the ICANN "Joint project > agreement" with the US Commerce Department. Comment deadline is Feb. > 15th, I have seen astoundingly little discussion of that topic here. On > today's IGP blog, I seek to stimulate some discussion of that issue. > Please take a look and let me know what you think. > > http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2008/1/17/3470996.html > > > Milton Mueller, Professor > Syracuse University > School of Information Studies > ------------------------------ > Internet Governance Project: > http://internetgovernance.org > ------------------------------ > The Convergence Center: > http://www.digitalconvergence.org > > -- Carlos A. Afonso diretor de planejamento Rits - Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor *************************************************************** Projeto Sacix - Apoio técnico a iniciativas de inclusão digital com software livre, mantido pela Rits em colaboração com o Coletivo Digital. Para mais informações: www.sacix.org.br www.rits.org.br www.coletivodigital.org.br ***************************************************************