[discuss] A thought experiment - what follows the 'IANA transition?'

Tue Mar 18 18:48:40 UTC 2014

The immediate problem is one of trust: In the management, the
structure, in its lawfulness, and its ability and effectiveness in
representing and executing on global views.

I would suggest that the current top layers of management at ICANN --
executive and board -- spin itself off into a global organization.

Call that the hub.

Everything else, GNSO, Registry/Registrar contract managment, DNSA,
GAC, etc -- the stakeholders -- each become relatively autonomous
spokes to that hub. Some or all of these will need some formalization
for their own executive and administrative management.

The role of the new hub is to ensure the community interest,
accountability and transparency, manage a budget, and importantly to
administer a centralized assembly with specific powers -- call it a
general assembly -- of the spokes.

The spokes choose hub board members and have input into approval of
the hub's executive management. Certain roles (e.g., chair) are
delegated to the board itself.

WHAT DOES THIS ACCOMPLISH?

You instantly have a top-tier organization which has been globalized
but is recognized as being capable of performing the executive and
administrative functions.

It's the same people we all know on day one just reorganized a little
into a more globally responsive structure.

There is no immediate need for agonizing over choosing some new
top-level hierarchy (i.e., people, process.)

That can occur evolutionarily within the re-org structure.

This General Assembly (spokes) can add new spokes (stakeholder groups)
as needed by some typical voting regimen with the hub attending to
issues of adherence to by-laws, budget, transparency, etc.

A major missing piece (TBD) is an adjudication arm for settling any
disputes between the hub and spokes which seem to come down to
disagreement over interpretation of by-laws and precedent (i.e., can't
simply be resolved by a vote, for example "can we vote on XYZ???"),
whether process was properly followed, etc.

P.S. Whenver I see "DNSA" I can't help but think distributed-NSA but
perhaps that's my technical side :-)

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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