[CCWG-Accountability] Related work on ICANN's Public Interest

[Malcolm Hutty]

On 2014-12-17 16:07, Jordan Carter wrote:
> Thanks Bruce, Steve.
> 
> I've read the rest of the thread and think it goes down a little bit
> of a rabbit hole, but that's OK (maybe it means the same one won't
> appear later?).
> 
> For me the primary concern with a non-defined use of the term "public
> interest" is that it gives license to the person using it to advance
> beyond the ICANN remit of technical coordination of the DNS and other
> Internet identifiers, into all sorts of other things. Alternatively,
> it can be used to try and dismiss proposed policy or practice that
> make sense to the operational communities.
> 
> On that basis I have a degree of comfort with Steve's post. If we are
> clear that ICANN serves the global public interest by serving the
> operational communities and coordinating among and between names,
> numbers and protocols, then other questions get a bit easier to
> answer.

I wholeheartedly agree, and I think Steve's post points the way forward
on defining what we want to hold ICANN accountable for doing.

I would also apply the same reasoning to the comments going on a 
parallel thread
on "principles of international public law".

Certainly I would regard it as being in the public interest that ICANN
should discharge its functions properly, and in accordance with 
generally
accepted principles of law. I would be very wary, however, of linking
those concepts in a way that pointed to ICANN's functions being bent 
towards
promoting the multitude of objectives and outcomes that might be said to
be a matter of public interest, or called for by principles of 
international
public law.

So if we are to refer to these concepts, I think it is very important
*how* we refer to them. We should be very careful not to create a sense
that the narrow scope of ICANN's responsibilities for DNS is 
supplemented
by a broader ambition to use the DNS to pursue a general and unbounded 
set
of policies "in the public interest", or to accept responsibility for 
achieving
the goals set by the wide range of instruments and measures that make up
international public law.

Malcolm.
-- 
             Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523
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