[CCWG-ACCT] Regarding the Board's Comments and It's Obligations

[Kieren McCarthy]

I don't know why anyone is surprised at the response from those Board
members that were on the call.

This will be the third time that the internet community has formally
recommended that there be some kind of formal oversight of ICANN; ICANN
corporate has knocked it down each time.

In October last year, knowing that this exact scenario was going to play
out, I asked both Crocker and Chehade at the press conference at the Los
Angeles meeting whether they were opposed to some kind of oversight.

This is what I wrote at the time:

---------

This is not the first time that the ICANN community has tried to create a
mechanism that would stop the board from being the ultimate decider of
everything. It’s not even the second time. It will be the third time that
there has been a formal recommendation that ICANN’s board be subject to
oversight. And so far, it is determined not to budge.

When we asked ICANN’s CEO, Fadi Chehade, point-blank whether ICANN was
opposed to an oversight mechanism, he told us that he couldn’t respond
until there was a further formal recommendation. “Let’s let the community
speak,” he urged, before saying that to be considered, the idea “would
require complete consensus and more extended dialogue.”

ICANN’s chairman, Steve Crocker, was more forthcoming but was clearly
opposed to the idea. He has been on the ICANN board for 12 years and so
seen repeated efforts to make the board accountable beyond itself.

“This could be a slippery slope,” he told us. “I know that it doesn’t feel
right that the board reviews its own decisions but the harder part is: what
do you do? We have all been raised to believe in the separation of powers
and legislation versus judicial, but the role of the judiciary is not to
reverse or supersede decisions. The primary force is whether the community
at large feels it has had a fair hearing.”
Changing the current situation, he argued, would “create more problems than
it solves.”
---------

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/23/icann-accountability-internet-health/?page=3


So rather than everyone getting upset about the inevitable, what I would
really like to see is this group recognize that the Board and the staff
will do all they can to prevent a real enforceable oversight and then
prepare and respond in advance.

If this group thinks that a real legal right is needed to enforce change
then it must accept that it will have to force that past the Board. And
past ICANN's lawyers who will claim it is either impossible or illegal or
would be irreparably damaging to the organization.

This is not going to be resolved through compromise, or teleconferences, or
drafts. It is a line-in-the-sand issue: legal right or no legal right.




Kieren



On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 10:28 AM, Paul Rosenzweig <
paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:

> All
>
>
>
> In preparation for our call today, I wanted to share with you the
> following that I pulled from the hearing that the Senate Commerce Committee
> held earlier this year:
>
> ***
>
>
>
> The Chairman:  Will the ICANN Board send a proposal to NTIA that lessens
> the Board’s power or authority?
>
> Mr. Chehade:  We will if the community and the stakeholders present us
> with a proposal.  We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we
> will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we
> should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our
> stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA *as is*.
>
> ***
>
> I would read this as a commitment from ICANN and the Board.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> Paul Rosenzweig
>
> Red Branch Consulting, PLLC
>
> 509 C St. NE
>
> Washington, DC 20002
>
> paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com
> <paul.rosenzweigesq at redbranchconsulting.com>
>
> O: +1 (202) 547-0660
>
> M: +1 (202) 329-9650
>
> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739
>
> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066
>
> www.redbranchconsulting.com
>
> www.paulrosenzweigesq.com
>
> Link to my PGP Key
> <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=9>
>
>
>
>
>
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