[CCWG-ACCT] [community-finance] IANA Stewardship Transition - Project Expenses - FY16 Q3 update

[John Curran]

On Aug 21, 2016, at 9:03 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> Sorry, John, I am unable to follow the meaning of your insistence on specificity. But I do know clearly well that if we, or 'the community', agrees to the principle that if any comparable information request to the US or Indian government would elicit a legally mandated information disclosure, ICANN should also do it, then an appropriate information disclosure regime can easily be written out for ICANN. The draft can then be tested for this principle, and finalised, and adopted. (This will for instance mean that about 90 percent of ICANN's current non disclosure conditions will be thrown in the waste-paper bin where they belong). 
> 
> If your insistence on specificity means that I should first present an entire draft of the information disclosure policy for ICANN, that I would consider appropriate, without the 'community' or the 'empowered WG' first discussing and agreeing to the higher level principles of it, I find it simply a way to foreclose the important discussion -- because such is quite impractical for anyone to do.
> 
I did not ask for an “an entire draft of the information disclosure policy for ICANN”
but I did ask for specific changes to the current one in order that we could make 
progress forward.
> I have been involved in enough draftings of documents related to governance/ policies etc, and it is always first discussion and agreement on larger principles, followed by more specific drafting. 
> 
I will acknowledge that “principles, then specifics” approach is sometimes used
with success, although it is not the only way to approach these matters.  In fact, I 
would argue that the varying levels of experience that each of us has with ICANN’s
information disclosure practices would warrant discussing at least a handoff of specific
cases where it did not suffice, if nothing more than to provide us all a common basis
of understanding of the need for change.   

(I see that Paul Rosenzweig has embarked on such an activity on this list, which is 
most excellent...) 
> And so I repeat my specific question to you" Does this group share the expectation that at the end of the transition process, ICANN will adopt information disclosure policies of the same level as that of mature democracies today (I give the public information regimes of India and US as specific examples)? If not, why so?”
> 

Since “information disclosure policies of the same level as that of mature democracies” 
is otherwise undefined, I would not support such…   Suggesting that ICANN emulate 
generically unstated principles based on whatever each one of us might consider a 
mature democracy results in meaningless agreement, since we are certain to be able 
to find inconsistencies both in the countries and their policies that might be considered.

If you would like to state some actual information disclosure _principles_ that you feel 
are important (i.e. extracting them from those countries you wish to emulate), then perhaps
some progress might be made.  Seeking generically to claim that we should ape “mature 
governments policies” without actually stating the principles to be followed would appear 
to be an highly indirect and potentially disingenuous approach to the problem.

Thanks,
/John

Disclaimer: my views alone.




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