[discuss] Possible approaches to solving "problem no. 1"

Mon Feb 17 20:04:54 UTC 2014

Brian,

I think that you are quite right in terms of formal accountability.

However, given the importance of the Internet today and in the future, I don’t think that the world will be at all comfortable putting ICANN in the hands of a 16 (or 20, depending upon how you count) member Board of Directors.  I think that’s the case even if the Board were to magically be able to internalize IANA within ICANN completely and move to, say, Geneva.

We could, as you suggest, look at Board selection processes again.  An earlier attempt to select Directors through direct voting failed badly, in my opinion, but there are a whole range of possibilities that could be explored.

Legal issues need to be addressed.  What type of organization would ICANN be if it performed the magic trick above and was headquartered in, say, Geneva?  What legal status, and equally important, protections, would it need and what would it have?  I wish some of the diplomats and lawyers subscribed to this list would make contributions that address these questions.

George

On Feb 17, 2014, at 2:39 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 18/02/2014 02:22, George Sadowsky wrote:
>> All,
>> 
>> If we want to move forward from Ian Peter’s conclusion below, the accountability framework for ICANN becomes crucial, which is why I quoted earlier from Jovan’s two diplomacy-based options.  ICANN can internalize IANA without a problem, but then how is ICANN made accountable in a manner that both leaves the degrees of freedom it needs to operate effectively and ensures effective global oversight over its activities?
> 
> Maybe I'm naive (and maybe sometimes that is a good thing to be),
> but it seems to me that ICANN is accountable to its Board and its
> Board members are accountable to the communities that select them.
> 
> If there's an accountability problem, surely we'd need to look
> at the Board selection processes again?
> 
>   Brian
> 