[CWG-Stewardship] ICANN fighting separabiity in the numbers space

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 05:00:15PM +0000, David Conrad wrote:
> separation is chosen, how will the communities (e.g., the naming community,
> the IETF, and the NRO) demonstrate accountability at least as strong as what
> ICANN provides _to the global stakeholder community_ if that separation
> occurs? 

The problem with phrasing the question that way is that it suggests,
if not assumes, that ICANN adds anything at all to the IETF's or NRO's
accountability.  I suppose the assumption is that if one of those
communities adopted a policy through their normal methods, and someone
didn't like that, then they could appeal to ICANN to stop the IANA
actions attendant on such a policy.

I would like to suggest that, if ICANN actually refused to perform the
IANA actions as instructed by either one of those communities when
those communities had already followed their well-defined,
participatory processes to reach a conclusion, we'd almost
certainly have a crisis that would result in the end of IANA as we
know it.  Therefore, it seems to me that there is no accountability
change _at all_ in the event the separation is chosen.  The conditions
after such separation would be no different than those before: the
policy is developed in one community, and the outcome is published
faithfully by the relevant IANA functions operator.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com