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

Thu Sep 11 13:38:52 UTC 2014

On Sep 10, 2014, at 11:15 PM, Seth Johnson <seth.p.johnson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
<snip>

> And the nature of the international arena in this regard interjects
> itself intrinsically regardless of assertions that one is setting up
> something that is non-government-led or non-inter-governmental.  One
> has to make specific efforts to address the change in the nature of
> the context (and in the form of rather distinctive provisions), for
> the assertion to actually gain purchase.
> 
> Seth
> 

Well said.   And points to one of the curiosities of the NTIA announcement.  Strickling et al are certainly aware of the difficulty (impossibility?) under current conditions of creating a trans-national non-governmental entity with sufficient standing to act as an oversight backstop to ICANN. So we are left with half a loaf in the form of an exhortation that an MS effort do this despite the obstacles.  Remionds me of several intractable problems that the agencies tossed in ICANN’s direction at the time of its formation.

Good luck to us all.  

- Mike

>> Let's keep in mind those constraints in the institutional design that is
>> taking place.
>> 
>> Alejandro Pisanty
>> 
>> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs at anvilwalrusden.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 07:53:14PM +0000, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> A good way to reconcile those two requirements is to have an
>>>> "independent judiciary" with the authority to enforce binding,
>>>> constitutional limitations on what the policy process can do. This appeals
>>>> process could be used to challenge ultra vires policies, to challenge major
>>>> process failures, or to challenge implementations that do not reflect agreed
>>>> policies. All of these challenges should take place BEFORE anything hits the
>>>> IANA, of course. If policy (ICANN) and IANA are integrated in the same
>>>> organization, it becomes harder to enforce that kind of accountability,
>>>> imho.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Given the "BEFORE" in that, am I to understand that you intend this
>>> "independent judiciary" to be inside each community function, or do
>>> you intend it to be another community/entity/organization outside all
>>> the existing ones?
>>> 
>>> I think the former might be ok -- indeed, it's really just an
>>> effective appeal/redress mechanism, and is consistent with the idea of
>>> minimal change to the systems.
>>> 
>>> The latter interpretation is rather more problematic to me.  To begin
>>> with, I don't really see how we're going to get such an organization
>>> spun up in anything like reasonable time.  There's also the issue of
>>> how to balance _its_ power: the ability of various countries' supreme
>>> courts have made them ideal targets for politicised appointments, with
>>> the very goal of imposing over the long term policies which cannot be
>>> sustained by the ballot box.  (If you can water down election spending
>>> limits in the legislature, you can win a victory for a while; if you
>>> can get them ruled unconsistitutional, you've _really_ won.)  The
>>> obvious answer, of course, is an appeal mechanism which then itself
>>> needs the same appeal mechanism, and so on.
>>> 
>>> Moreover, I'm reasonably confident that at least one community thinks
>>> that its existing accountability mechanisms are an internal matter,
>>> and that it would be at least uncomfortable with the idea of an
>>> external party imposing oversight.
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> A
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Andrew Sullivan
>>> ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
>> Facultad de Química UNAM
>> Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
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