On Feb 24, 2015, at 3:06 PM, Seun Ojedeji <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Amr,

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 2:29 PM, Amr Elsadr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
This depends on whether there can be adequate accountability mechanism that empowers the policy making body community to be involved in the decision making making process that will affect their respective functions of IANA.

I am certainly NOT in favour of this answer being included in the NCSG response. For one thing, I’m not convinced that there is any guarantee that this level of accountability is achievable. Besides, the statement seems a little vague to me. The “policy making body community” includes the ICANN board and staff. Aren’t they the ones who need to be held accountable?

Considering that the suggestion came from me, i will attempt to give my reasons not necessarily to insist that my comments be taken but with the hope of clarifying the "vague" part of your statement.
Here is the question again:

Are you comfortable with ICANN as policy-maker also being the IANA operator without the benefit of external oversight?

I understood the question to be asking about a future scenario and not present. The "policy making body community" represents the multistakeholder community that exist within ICANN, while i agree that ICANN board could be seen as part of the community the main point for me is that the operation of IANA should reflect collective view of the community as much as possible.

Thanks for this. I believe this is a misunderstanding in semantics of sorts. I suspect our intent was the same. To clarify my point, the GNSO council makes policy recommendations to the ICANN board after a long and rigorous bottom-up process of policy development including multiple stages of public comment. The policy recommendations don’t actually become gTLD policy (or ICANN policy) until the board ratifies them. That’s pretty much why I included the board/staff in the collective of the “policy making body community”.

So if the NTIA oversight is gone and there is adequate community involvement in the operation of IANA then i would personally be comfortable with ICANN being a policy maker and operator since the operation would rely strongly on the community developed policies.
As to your question about who is to be held accountable, i think its the board and the entire community. While its the board that we are pointing fingers at right now, we need to ensure that any transition ensure accountability of both sides of the community. So a bi-directional accountability is required as the non-board community also have leaders and members who needs to be accountable as well.

Hmm. I would agree that the community en masse needs to be accountable through processes that require accountability at all levels of policy development. I disagree in characterising that accountability as bi-directional. I don’t see why the community needs to be accountable to the board, but to be honest, I haven’t given that much thought before. I think the top of the process needs to be accountable to the bottom, not the other way around. For example, as an NCSG representative on the GNSO Council, I believe I need to be accountable to the NCSG membership. I do not believe I owe any accountability to the GNSO Chair, or the ICANN board. In fact, bi-directional accountability in my case may present me with unavoidable conflicts.

The overall accountability of the process is beneficial to all those involved in it, as well to beneficiaries who are not directly involved. Not all non-commercial registrants are members of the NCSG. Additionally, the accountability of the process ensures that it is not captured by one special interest group at the expense of another.

More importantly, I am very much in favour of one of the initial principles agreed to by the CWG early in its work - separation of ICANN’s policy development role from the IANA operator functions.

If you agree that the current separation reflects what you are in favour of then i think we are not far from our thoughts.

Yes. I feel the current separation is acceptable because of the external oversight by the NTIA. This model will hopefully be enhanced/improved as a result of the current process.

I was never really comfortable with the idea of directly involving the ICANN SOs and ACs in the oversight or decision-making processes of IANA.

Well the task is to transition to multistakeholder community and the RIR community for instance has always ensured that its community developed policy is what is used to operate functions related to numbers....such needs to be ensured with names. That is what i mean by involvement, not necessarily giving SOs and ACs direct postsitions/roles to manage IANA but making sure their policies and collective views influence the manner by which IANA operate.

Great. So we are in agreement there. However, the task was never, strictly-speaking, “to transition to multistakeholder community”. Rather ICANN was tasked to convene a process by which the global multi-stakeholder community determines how best the stewardship transition takes place. There was no predetermined outcome stipulating where the stewardship was required to land. Only conditions limiting capture by certain stakeholders (governments and inter-governmental organisations) in addition to some other prerequisites the NTIA has set.

As a member of the NCSG policy committee, I cannot endorse a statement by this stakeholder group that says external oversight is unnecessary in the event that certain accountability measures are taken. I hope that you and others who believe this to be the case don’t take it personally. I just simply don’t see it that way. It is my understanding that that is the majority opinion here as well.

Thanks.

Amr