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

[Keith Davidson]

On 18/02/2014 8:39 a.m., Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> 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?

There are some codicils to the rules you have mentioned Brian.

For example, the GAC can and does provide "advice" to the ICANN Board. 
The ICANN Board must then either accept that advice or reject that 
advice and explain to the GAC why it must reject that advice.

Another example are the ICANN bylaws for the ccTLD community, which 
requires ICANN to agree that all policies that impact ccTLDs will be 
developed by the ccTLD community. Furthermore, if the ccNSO by consensus 
adopts a policy and an individual ccTLD manager has local laws that 
prohibit adherence to that policy, that ccTLD will be exempted from the 
ccNSO / ICANN policy

So there are reasons why and where the ICANN Board has limited powers 
over the ICANN community. There should be few or no problems if ICANN 
acts in bottom up, consensus based open and transparent policy 
development, but sadly over history this has not always been the case.

Cheers

Keith