At 12:47 AM +0000 8/8/16, Mueller, Milton L wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> But I guess GAC has less well-defined institutional dynamics than ITU. >>Is that >> the difference you're getting at? -- I'm no expert on ITU either...) >> >> Or, are we now considering governments "stakeholders" too? If so, why not >> just make GAC a garden-variety SG in GNSO? The "GSG" -- Government >> Stakeholder Group? > >Bingo. That's what is happening. > >> I may not be expert in the implications of the term of art "multilateral" >> but I honestly don't see much difference in ICANN being whip-tailed by >>GAC or >> ITU if the dynamic is comparable. Can you elaborate on this distinction? > >The difference is that an ICANN completely dominated by governments is >worse than the ITU because ICANN has global hierarchical power over the >DNS, whereas as a treaty-based organization the ITU cannot make any >sovereign member do something it doesn't want to do. When ICANN imposes >rules on how DNS works however, it has global effect. So at least I'm not misreading things that increased policy-making influence by governments at ICANN is something to worry about. I'm still trying to understand how GAC is not multilateral *internally*. Is the danger that GAC want to inject multilateral dynamics into ICANN by sneaking in through the multistakeholder door? And basically turn ICANN into an equivalent of a multilateral policy-making process? Except more powerful because GAC would end up creating "consensus" policy that becomes universally applied globally rather than national opt-in? So you're saying that existing multilateral precedents are all basically opt-in, but this would take multinational policy and step it up to an instance of actual "world government" in a sense? And that is not what is meant by "multilateral"? Maybe I'm just getting hung up on the MLM/MSM terminology...