[CCWG-ACCT] Governing vs co-ordinating (was Re: [community-finance] IANA Stewardship Transition - Project Expenses - FY16 Q3 update)

John Curran jcurran at istaff.org
Sun Aug 14 16:14:01 UTC 2016


Nicely said Andrew! 

I’ll note we’ve wandered somewhat from Parminder’s original note - it was 
regarding transparency, and I actually think there’s very little disagreement
in that regard - ICANN should operate to the highest transparency standards.  

I would argue that such is a underlying required principle of policy-setting and 
operations for all of the various IANA registries (as elaborated in RFC 7500 
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7500>), whereas Parminder seems to assert 
such a requirement due to his perception that ICANN's resembles some form
of “public governance body. “    Either way, the important outcome is the 
requirement for transparency.

/John

p.s. my views alone.

> On Aug 14, 2016, at 11:56 AM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs at anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 09:26:48AM -0500, Pranesh Prakash wrote:
>> 
>> Those are standards-setting bodies.  Those of us who study patents (and
>> especially patent pools) believe that they too wield power, and are
>> important governance actors.  They aren't mere "coordination" bodies.
> 
> Could you say more about what you think the differences are among
> "coordination", "wielding power", and "governance"; and also whether
> you think there is a difference between the way that those terms apply
> to standards development organizations that work as effective patent
> pools and those that do not?  It seems to me that some of these
> distinctions could make a difference.
> 
>> here.  If one goes by the definition of "Internet governance" that emerged
>> from the WGIG ("Internet governance is the development and application of
>> shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs
>> that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.") then ICANN clearly
>> engages in Internet governance.
> 
> [and later]
> 
>> more it engages in a "governance" function.  (A nation-state, even a
>> minimalist one, after all, is a "coordination body - one that sets polices
>> and charges various fees related to national affairs", but also a governance
>> body.)
> 
> But the difference here is surely one of sovereignty.  A
> nation-state's government can undertake "governance" in the sense that
> it can not only develop and apply "shared principles, norms, rules,
> decision-making procedures, and programs", but also that it can decide
> which of those are ones the violations of which people can be fined or
> go to jail or whatever.  That is not something that other bodies can do.
> 
> Part of the reason some people (I, at least; I won't speak for John)
> get concerned about the word "governance" is because there is a
> tendency to slide pretty fast from "here are the rules" to "here are
> the controls by which we shall enforce your conformance to these
> rules."  That latter move has a faint scent of the illegitimate about
> it, because in a network of networks there isn't anybody -- and
> shouldn't be anybody -- who has the legimtate authority to make the
> former move.  For instance, …
> 
>> only one canonical set of domain names.  Even if you believe that ICANN only
>> does "coordinating" (it emphatically doesn't), it's "coordination"
>> definitely leads to my being governed by my ISP's choice to use
>> ICANN-recognized root servers.
> 
> … it most definitely does not lead to that.  Indeed, an awful lot of
> networks connected to the Internet _aren't_ using only the
> ICANN-recognized root servers, because just about everyone uses split
> DNS some of the time.  Split DNS is just another way of accepting that
> the global name space is in fact not the only one.  It's the only
> _global_ one, but there are lots of local ones.  (This is a problem
> for global co-ordination, I agree.)
> 
> Moreover, you could just use another DNS root, if you wanted, even if
> your ISP didn't want to.  The reason we don't see a lot of root
> splintering is not because of governance or rules.  It's because
> fracturing the global namespace is much worse for everyone than having
> these choices.  There is nothing in any rule or technology preventing
> an alternative root.  What there is, however, is the vast utiity that
> accrues to everyone if we have just one namespace.  So we have a
> tussle to work out what that namespace will look like.
> 
> So, I think that the emphasis on "governance" is at least problematic
> in two ways: it emphasises the role of sovereignty in a system that is
> designed almost exactly to resist such sovereignty, and it fails to
> acknowledge that the outcomes we appear to have are driven primarily
> by utility functions rather than governance.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A
> 
> -- 
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
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