[CWG-Stewardship] [IANA-issues] Fwd: Names Community vs the other two communities

Thu Oct 30 18:47:12 UTC 2014

Hi,

It feels to me like I have a naively simplistic view of what we should be discussing and proposing to the ICG. Sure…, there need to be more effective safeguards than are currently in existence for (any and all) stakeholders to be able to address cases where implementation of policy is not proceeding as intended. These also certainly need to be more serious and enforceable than the current process of “requests for reconsideration”, where the ICANN board is asked to reconsider the dodgy decisions they themselves make.

However, I would not want to conflate these issues with what we are discussing here. They constitute concerns of broader ICANN accountability, and need to be addressed and dealt with in parallel to the IANA stewardship transition. I’m concerned that if we try to deal with issues of ICANN accountability using oversight here now, we’ll never get the actual transition of IANA stewardship done in time.

Like I said, I have a rather simplistic view here; an agreement between two parties — a principle and a contractor. Terms of the agreement need to be set, probably very much consistent with the technical duties Becky listed earlier. In the event of a breach of contract, the principle could (according to the terms of the agreement) either terminate the relationship with the contractor seeking an alternative IANA operator, or whatever it is we decide might be a less drastic set of steps to take before reaching this conclusion.

I’m guessing that gTLD and ccTLD registries will be the most likely to be able to point out that a breach in contract has occurred under those conditions. So their inclusion in the group constituting the principle should be a no-brainer. If other stakeholders want to be involved in the group, we should be made to understand exactly why. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be any, but I would really like to understand the necessity. Is there a concern that the principle in the agreement may abuse its authority by either terminating the contract without just cause? Perhaps grant the contract to another operator for underhanded reasons? I can see why it would be beneficial to have others in the loop of the decision-making body for those purposes, but that is still not the same as oversight of the operator to me. The oversight is still being done by the direct client (registries). Furthermore, aren’t there already laws in place that would allow a wronged contractor to sue a principle that terminates a contract unjustly? I’m really asking as I am not a legal expert of any kind. Aren’t there any?

Would be grateful to hear more thoughts, with specifics on why folks believe it is important to have multistakeholder oversight of the OPERATOR (not policy development organisation), and how this would be achieved.

Thanks.

Amr

On Oct 30, 2014, at 4:20 PM, Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org> wrote:

> The issue is how to possibly add in -
> 
> - The ability to strengthen the ability for concerns to be raised
> - Aa much stronger oversight mechanism/body that has an enforcement capability over the board & staff. 
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
>> On Oct 29, 2014, at 2:17 PM, Burr, Becky <Becky.Burr at neustar.biz> wrote:
>> 
>> If IANA is not implementing policy properly, the GNSO would call the Board and staff out.  
>> 
>> J. Beckwith Burr
>> Neustar, Inc. / Deputy General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer
>> 1775 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006
>> Office: + 1.202.533.2932  Mobile:  +1.202.352.6367  / becky.burr at neustar.biz / www.neustar.biz
>> 
>> From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
>> Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 at 11:00 AM
>> To: Becky Burr <becky.burr at neustar.biz>, Guru Acharya <gurcharya at gmail.com>, Allan MacGillivray <allan.macgillivray at cira.ca>
>> Cc: "cwg-stewardship at icann.org" <cwg-stewardship at icann.org>, "Lindeberg, Elise" <elise.lindeberg at npt.no>
>> Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] [IANA-issues] Fwd: Names Community vs the other two communities
>> 
>> There is a potential problem with having just registries doing the oversight. Particularly for gTLD,s policy is set by a MS group (the GNSO) and it is possible that they can set a policy that the gTLD registries do not approve of (they do not have a veto based on GNSO voting threshholds). If IANA were to not be implementing that policy properly, the oversight body, composed of only registries would have no incentive to call IANA out on the problem.
>> 
>> Alan
>> 
>> At 29/10/2014 10:33 AM, Burr, Becky wrote:
>> 
>>> I’d envisioned the “Oversight Council” to be elected by registries (ccs and gs) organized in some fashion outside of the ICANN umbrella – so the IANA Oversight Inc. or other association we were talking about the other day.  It seems to me that the duties and authority of the Council would be determined by the membership of the organization (I.e., the registries) – so these questions would be resolved as part of structuring Oversight, Inc.  Let’s not create yet another separate mechanism.  Instead, figure out a way for the views of all stakeholders with respect to major decisions can be collected by Oversight, Inc. and taken into account in the process of developing major proposals.  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> J. Beckwith Burr
>>> 
>>> Neustar, Inc. / Deputy General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer
>>> 
>>> 1775 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006
>>> 
>>> Office: + 1.202.533.2932  Mobile:  +1.202.352.6367  / becky.burr at neustar.biz / www.neustar.biz
>>> 
>>> From: Guru Acharya <gurcharya at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 at 9:35 AM
>>> To: Allan MacGillivray < allan.macgillivray at cira.ca>
>>> Cc: Becky Burr <becky.burr at neustar.biz >, " cwg-stewardship at icann.org" < cwg-stewardship at icann.org>, "Lindeberg, Elise" <elise.lindeberg at npt.no >
>>> Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] [IANA-issues] Fwd: Names Community vs the other two communities
>>> 
>>> Postulates emerging from Allan's remarks:
>>> 
>>> The Oversight Council will monitor compliance with day to day technical SLA type requirements.
>>> 
>>> Even though the final contracting authority of changing the IANA operator will rest with the Oversight Council:
>>> 
>>> 1) There will be a "separate mechanism" for recommending any major decision to the Oversight Council, including change of IANA operator
>>> 
>>> 2) The Oversight Council will be bound to accept/implement the decision of the "separate mechanism". 
>>> 
>>> 3) That "separate mechanism" will necessarily involve the views of the GAC.
>>> 
>>> 4) That "separate mechanism" will be at an arms length from ICANN so that the ICANN board can not interfere since ICANN is the present IANA operator.
>>> 
>>> How do we intend to codify these characteristics of the "separate mechanism" so that the GAC can be assured that they will be consulted in case of change of the IANA operator? Maybe as part of a MOU between the Oversight Council and GAC+ALAC+GNSO+CCSNO?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 6:32 PM, Allan MacGillivray < allan.macgillivray at cira.ca> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I see the “oversight council” as being a body that deals with IANA compliance with day-to-day SLA-type responsibilities e.g. the current performance metric that 80% of root zone file and WHOIS database change requests be completed within 21 days.  I would not expect that governments (other than those that are ccTLD operators) would have much interest in this. However, were there to be major review of these functions, such as that which the NTIA initiated in 2011 with its NOI, or to change the operator, then I would expect that the responsibility for conducting such a review would not fall on the ‘oversight council’ alone and that in whatever mechanism that would be established, there could be a role for governments.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> From: cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org [ mailto:cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Guru Acharya
>>> Sent: October-29-14 8:32 AM
>>> To: Becky Burr
>>> Cc: cwg-stewardship at icann.org; Lindeberg, Elise
>>> Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] [IANA-issues] Fwd: Names Community vs the other two communities
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Becky. I agree with your initial assessment that the "oversight council" would focus on "technical and operational issues" (as opposed to policy issues); and therefore GAC participation in the council will not be required even though GAC participation at an equal footing will not be inconsistent with the multi-stakeholder model. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> However, I think GAC participation in the council might be essential in the scenario where the oversight council decides to change the IANA operator in the future. If the council decides to contract a different operator (different from ICANN) in the future, would it not lead to various policy issues such as jurisdiction of the new IANA operator, financing of the new IANA operator etc - where the insight of the GAC may be beneficial?
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Therefore I think GAC should be a part of the oversight council.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> Guru
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 8:47 PM, Burr, Becky <Becky.Burr at neustar.biz > wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thanks Elise, very helpful.  I was thinking that the “oversight counsel” would focus on technical and operational issues as opposed to policy issues ... But policy for IANA would remain in existing ICANN processes.  Could you help me understand which technical/operational IANA services might raise “public interest” concerns?  I agree with you that having some GAC reps on a Oversight Counsel would not be inconsistent with the Strickling view, but I am curious about why GAC might want to participate in that kind of counsel. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CWG-Stewardship mailing list
>>> CWG-Stewardship at icann.org
>>> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg-stewardship
>> _______________________________________________
>> CWG-Stewardship mailing list
>> CWG-Stewardship at icann.org
>> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg-stewardship
> 
> _______________________________________________
> CWG-Stewardship mailing list
> CWG-Stewardship at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg-stewardship

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cwg-stewardship/attachments/20141030/18719a12/attachment-0001.html>