[discuss] [IANAxfer] Two accountability questions - help pls- Workshop 23 - ICANN accountability

[Seth Johnson]

Well, I said "top-most."  Which is a political problem, certainly.
But of course most everything here is.  Some pieces can be pushed more
expeditiously, but others have to be "claimed."

But the other side of the problem is getting governments to engage on
the terms of this body.  It might be necessary to pose a challenge, as
in "we have secured our liberties and encourage governments to
cooperate on the basis of an organ that lets the peoples of the world
express and assert the fundamental status of their rights in relation
to governments.  We believe this will support the platform we want and
call you to take part."  The important thing being phrasing it in
terms of the nature of the problem.

I wouldn't be sure how participation and representation would
function.  A bicameral structure springs to mind.  I'm still
spitballing.  However, I am describing the problem carefully so we can
recognize its real nature and ramifications.


Seth

On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> wrote:
> sent from Google nexus 4
> kindly excuse brevity and typos.
> On 4 Sep 2014 19:51, "Seth Johnson" <seth.p.johnson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, presuming that we're speaking very generally, not just
>> particular operations/functions, one approximation of rooting things
>> in a context of the priority of rights might be something like a
>> "House of Rights."  That's where you have an organ that is coordinate
>> to the topmost regular processes, whose function is to represent local
>> governments (some of which are more free than others, of course) as
>> the source of fundamental liberties.  It would not be responsible for
>> day-to-day "operations" or "policy development," but simply veto power
>> and recommendations.  That is, participants in this body would
>> politick among themselves to produce majorities that would override
>> the regular process on the basis of fundamental liberties, and
>> supplement these decisions with recommendations.
>>
> This may be an option but 3 things I like to ask:
>
> - What part of ICANN will this body have an override power on. Is it on the
> management of the organisation or on the IANA operation. I presume the
> former will be somewhat placing another power above BOD which may no go well
> with current structure. However if for the later I think it should be more
> feasible
> - What/who will be the composition of this body
> - Usually it's the community that will first observe things going wrong,
> what will be the process for them to engage the ultimate body? and what
> level of "wrong" would determine when they contact the ultimate
> body(otherwise it will become a full-time job)
>
> In all these, and me thinking aloud; isn't IETF appropriate for these
> oversight since all these resources can be traced back to them being the
> source in the first place. However perhaps it could make the technocrats
> become more political and forget writing RFCs ;)
>
> Cheers!
>
>> Not the same, even a proposition of enormity, but once we start facing
>> the fact that we're losing our stewardship context, this would be
>> evident as the sort of things you really have to do as a an "interim"
>> kind of framework for doing things.  This is a way you could have a
>> definitive register of fundamental liberties, giving an approximation
>> of the context we want by recognizing liberties as deriving from
>> governments set up by their respective peoples, while the regular
>> conduct can be set up in a variety of perfectly typical, everyday ways
>> and proceed much as freely as our local governments do.  It just
>> establishes a really strong "representative organ," limited to veto
>> power and recommendations.
>>
>> I would hold that you're not really seriously dealing with the
>> international arena's implications unless you see that this sort of
>> conception is what's really needed.
>>
>> There are precedents for something somewhat similar, like the ILO.
>>
>>
>>
>> Seth
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 12:30 PM, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org> wrote:
>> > On Sep 4, 2014, at 7:14 PM, Seth Johnson <seth.p.johnson at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>>> On 31/08/2014, at 7:09 pm, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org> wrote:
>> >>>> ...
>> >>>> By "internal", are you asking wether such could be adequate based on
>> >>>> ICANN's current specific governance structures, or asking more
>> >>>> generically
>> >>>> the question of "can any organization be accountable to an external
>> >>>> community for performance of a task", and have the accountability
>> >>>> anchored solely via internal mechanisms?"
>> >>
>> >> Yes, an organization can be accountable to an external community for
>> >> performance of a task and have have the accountability anchored (nto
>> >> solely) via internal mechanisms.
>> >>
>> >> The paradigm case is democracy itself.
>> >> ...
>> >> You have an internal system, which is the business of regular
>> >> elections, with representatives and participation, and also an external
>> >> system, in a relationship to the people who set up the system.
>> >>
>> >> The biggest problem with the transition is in fact the tendency to
>> >> overlook the fact that the moorings of the stewardship we have had are
>> >> being removed.  Contracts and internal organizational structures (and
>> >> international treaties about rights signed onto and interpreted by
>> >> governments) don't really compensate for the loss of a relationship to
>> >> the solid basis of a constitutional act.
>> >
>> > That may be true with respect to governments, but whether it is
>> > applicable
>> > to the present situation with ICANN remains to be seen...
>> >
>> >> Just for you to take into account.  There are some ways to establish
>> >> something approximating this relationship to what's really the
>> >> strongest basis for accountability to a context that holds fundamental
>> >> liberties paramount.
>> >
>> > Okay, presuming everyone accepts the premise, what exactly would you
>> > suggest
>> > for ICANN's accountability mechanisms?  Would these be internal in
>> > nature, and
>> > if so, what is the "context" to which these mechanisms would be
>> > anchored?
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> > /John
>> >
>> > Disclaimer: my views alone.
>> >
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