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

[Christian de Larrinaga]

Maybe if ICANN did a little less then it might be easier to place?

I am intrigued by Steve Crocker's interesting note referencing RFC 1591. If the market regulatory aspects of gTLDs was to be delegated as ccTLDs are to countries (jurisdictions) that could take a lot of the sting out of this tail. 

A repurposed ICANN for technical co-ordination between stakeholders including those jurisdictions might produce more substantial legal and diplomatic clue. The knot of issues crisscrossing through ICANN now look more like a Gordium knot than a slip knot. 

Sometimes less is more ... as somebody said. 


Christian 

Christian de Larrinaga



    On 17 Feb 2014, at 20:04, George Sadowsky  wrote:

    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  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

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