[CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Matthew Shears
mshears at cdt.org
Fri Oct 9 11:24:56 UTC 2015
+ 1
On 08/10/2015 23:10, Robin Gross wrote:
> +1. Well said - and much appreciated.
>
> On Oct 8, 2015, at 5:45 PM, Steve DelBianco wrote:
>
>> Jordan,
>> Don’t apologize. Instead, just accept our gratitude for the effort
>> and integrity you have contributed to this process for nearly a year.
>> Your blog post is both sobering and inspiring. Our task remains, as
>> you say:
>>
>>> The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise
>>> through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds
>>> of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the
>>> American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the
>>> domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as
>>> free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given
>>> the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the
>>> playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
>>
>> From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org
>> <mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org>> on behalf
>> of Jordan Carter
>> Date: Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:19 PM
>> To: Accountability Cross Community
>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to
>> Dublin
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit
>> of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN
>> accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is
>> available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is
>> below.
>>
>> Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view
>> on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you
>> can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this
>> challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability
>> effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
>>
>> See many of you in Dublin next week!
>>
>> cheers
>> Jordan
>>
>>
>> ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
>>
>> 9 October - at
>> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-thoughts
>>
>>
>> You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a
>> difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur,
>> or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of
>> significant events.
>>
>> Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not
>> complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as
>> a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since
>> December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
>>
>> To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short
>> chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals,
>> significant moments in the project, and so on.
>>
>> You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
>>
>> .pdf
>> <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf>
>> .docx
>> <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
>>
>> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would
>> trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did.
>> Here are some of them:
>>
>> * *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the
>> demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability
>> process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge
>> progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability
>> mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised
>> models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked
>> together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The
>> Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does
>> not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet.
>> * *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN
>> have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout
>> this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG
>> speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week
>> in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say
>> that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility
>> lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible.
>> * *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has
>> followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence,
>> thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside
>> the box – all these have been central to the work of the group.
>> That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously
>> challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red
>> lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of
>> enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the
>> multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board
>> isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under
>> pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to
>> complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note
>> by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public
>> Experts Group last year, here
>> <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/006410.html>).
>> The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself
>> is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate
>> (and I am not one of them).
>>
>> * *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current
>> debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the
>> community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA
>> Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened
>> up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the
>> chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for
>> ICANN accountability.
>> * *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you
>> would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the
>> ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in
>> bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If
>> you’d suggested a community group working in open
>> multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the
>> CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have
>> happened. Things have moved.
>>
>> Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different
>> insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer
>> them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it
>> is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their
>> thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with
>> dialogue – not with solitude.
>>
>> ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform.
>> The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through
>> gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can
>> hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious
>> dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions
>> operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability
>> improvements now.
>>
>> (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your
>> mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the
>> pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
>>
>> We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it –
>> proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers
>> are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
>>
>> The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the
>> multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives
>> nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community
>> requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to
>> ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
>>
>> Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal
>> and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise
>> accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown
>> in the ocean.
>>
>> My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder
>> process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the
>> involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not
>> proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the
>> requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
>>
>> The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise
>> through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds
>> of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the
>> American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the
>> domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as
>> free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the
>> huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing
>> field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
>>
>> Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to
>> be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has
>> to be bullet proof.
>>
>> In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that
>> achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet
>> proof or not.
>>
>> No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal.
>> No transition proposal – no transition.
>>
>> No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off
>> come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
>>
>> Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
>>
>> Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old
>> high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
>>
>> --
>> Jordan Carter
>>
>> Chief Executive
>> *InternetNZ*
>>
>> +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob)
>> Email: jordan at internetnz.net.nz <mailto:jordan at internetnz.net.nz>
>> Skype: jordancarter
>> Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz/>
>>
>> /A better world through a better Internet /
>>
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>
>
>
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--
Matthew Shears
Director - Global Internet Policy and Human Rights
Center for Democracy & Technology
mshears at cdt.org
+ 44 771 247 2987
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