[CCWG-ACCT] Please review regarding IAB comments on Mission Statement

[Stephen Deerhake]

+1 to Nigel's remarks. 

As Nigel asks, can anyone within or outside of ICANN and the ICANN Community
actually point to the underlying fundamental legal foundation that props all
this up?

Stephen Deerhake

-----Original Message-----
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org
[mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Nigel
Roberts
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2015 5:38 PM
To: accountability-cross-community at icann.org
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Please review regarding IAB comments on Mission
Statement

Paul makes some interesting tactical points.

But can you point to ANY legal foundation where ICANN actually IS a "primary
head of power"???



On 10/31/2015 08:32 PM, Paul Twomey wrote:
> Becky
>
> I think the points made by Malcolm and the IAB make a lot of sense when
> viewed from the perspective of the engineering/technical community.
>
> But I would observe that the wording will interpreted with most impact
> on daily work of the ICANN community not by non technical entities, but
> particularly by the courts in various lands and the ongoing
> international "politics of technology" processes.   When I look at the
> proposed wording from that perspective, I worry that shifting to
> "support" in the Mission statement could result in destabilising
> uncertainty.   As we have seen in various litigation (to give only one
> example, litigation about trying to get TLDs recognized as property
> which the Courts can order moved from one party to another), the ability
> for the Judge's not to have any doubt as to the primacy of the ICANN
> (including community) role in determining the general rules/approach in
> this area has been important.
>
> It could be destabilising if we leave the impression in the
> politico/legal arena that ICANN only plays a supporting role, and that
> they can go looking for another primary head of power.
>
> I admit I am writing this from something of a paranoid view, but then I
> do have sympathy with Andy Grove's observation that only the paranoid
> survive.
>
> I can also understand why the IAB questions the operational accuracy of
> the use of the term "coordinates" in the opening sentence of the Mission
> Statement as it now stands.
>
> Is there a way of getting a more robust term than just "support"?
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Twomey
>
> On 10/31/15 11:52 PM, Malcolm Hutty wrote:
>> Becky,
>>
>> Thank you for bringing forward this proposal from the IAB.
>>
>> I think we should support the intent here. I do, however, have a concern
>> about one aspect of the implementation.
>>
>> The main overall effect of this proposal, and I believe its intent, is
>> to limit the statement of ICANN's Mission so that it more closely
>> reflects what is empirically ICANN's role today.
>>
>> Existing text states that ICANN's Mission is to ""coordinate, at the
>> overall level, the global Internet's system of unique identifiers", and
>> then goes on to says that "In particular", ICANN does certain things
>> regarding each of DNS, IP addresses and AS numbers, and protocol
parameters.
>>
>> The proposed text states that ICANN's mission is to "support, at the
>> overall level, core Internet registries".
>>
>> The change of verb, from "coordinate" to "support" seems to me to be a
>> good change: ICANN supports DNS, IP addressing and protocol parameters
>> in different ways, and the verb "co-ordinate" might wrongly suggest
>> responsibilities for ICANN that it does not have. For example, ICANN
>> does not in fact have change control authority over protocol parameters;
>> that lies with the IETF, and ICANN's role is to publish registries of
>> those parameters. Changing from "co-ordinate" to "support" more
>> accurately reflects this.
>>
>> On the other hand, the change of object from "the global Internet's
>> system of unique identifiers" to "core Internet registries" is a
>> broadening of scope.
>>
>> I am not sure what the limits of the scope of "core Internet registries"
>> is intended to be. Is a broadening of scope beyond the current text
>> intentional? If so, I would like to know the rationale.
>>
>> We need to be aware that future technologies might result in the
>> creation of new registries yet to be invented. I'm not sure we want
>> those to be automatically invested in ICANN.
>>
>> Speaking as someone from the network operator community, it's not at all
>> obvious to me that ICANN would necessarily be the obvious repository for
>> some future registry that was used operationally (that is, one consulted
>> in "run-time", as with the DNS or the global routing table, as opposed
>> to one consulted at software design time, as with (most? all?) IETF
>> protocol parameters). We might instead look to the Regional Internet
>> Registries, or to some other entity or, as with the routing table, it
>> might be distributed.
>>
>> Even if we did wish to invest ICANN with responsiblity for such a future
>> registry, the nature of that responsibility might need to be carefully
>> defined and limited, just has been done with DNS and with IP addresses.
>> If we exclude such new registries from the scope of ICANN's Mission now,
>> they could still be taken on later but to do so would require a
>> Fundamental Bylaws change; such a process would give an opportunity for
>> careful scrutiny and development of precisely what ICANN's role in
>> relation to that registry ought to be. On the other hand, if we now
>> decide that such a future registry is automatically ICANN's
>> responsibility, then a very different process will determine how ICANN
>> relates to it, a process that could result in ICANN undertaking a
>> function for which there is no current analogy, and without requiring
>> the positive consent of the community.
>>
>> In summary, before expanding ICANN's role beyond "the global Internet's
>> system of unique identifiers", I think we should hear why that is
>> needed, and carefully consider whether there might be inadvertent
>> consequences. When we hear the rationale, it might be possible to
>> accommodate it in other ways.
>>
>> If the rationale is nothing more than that the IETF fears that some of
>> its protocol parameters registries could not be described as "globally
>> unique identifiers", a more tailored solution is surely available. We
>> could simply authorise ICANN to publish registries of protocol
>> parameters when requested to do so by the IETF, or by protocol
>> development bodies generally. That would be much simpler, and the
>> opportunity for inadvertent consequences would be greatly reduced.
>>
>> Malcolm.
>
>
>
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