[CWG-Stewardship] ICANN Board as "regulator" (was: A liaison from the Board to CWG)

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 11:13:09AM +0000, Lindeberg, Elise wrote:
> As I mentioned on the last conference call - The CWG must come up with a solution to the .int operations. So I suggest this as an issue for a design team now or in the near future. 
> 

Re-reading the relevant materials, I'm not convinced that this is a
necessary condition for transition.  That is, the existing ICANN-NTIA
agreement covers the int registry in C.2.9.4, and suggests that it is
up to the USG who the operator of int is.  The decision process for
who operates int is not part of the existing agreement; only the
operation is.  So I _think_, for the purposes of the transition, the
same provisions should just be affirmed.

> Registry operations for .int  - Under the ICANN bylaws Article II, section 2 - ICANN should not be allowed to be a registry or registrar. That is in conflict with the current practice for.int
> 

Are you quite sure that there is a conflict?  Here's the bylaw text in
full:

    ICANN shall not act as a Domain Name System Registry or Registrar
    or Internet Protocol Address Registry in competition with entities
    affected by the policies of ICANN. Nothing in this Section is
    intended to prevent ICANN from taking whatever steps are necessary
    to protect the operational stability of the Internet in the event
    of financial failure of a Registry or Registrar or other
    emergency.

I think that the "in competition with entities affected by the
policies of ICANN" modifies both the types of registries and the
registrar previously mentioned.  Moreover, the IANA department of
ICANN is definitely operating registries: it is the registry for the
root zone (that's why it has the whois for the root zone too), and for
the top-level numbers, and for the protocol parameters.  So it can't
be that ICANN cannot operate _any_ registry, or the very point of the
IANA function would not be possible.

I don't believe ICANN/IANA is in any competition with anyone to
operate the int registry, because the USG specifies the operator and,
as far as I know, hasn't put the operation out to bid.

I don't believe ICANN/IANA is in any competition with anyone as a
registrar, because I cannot imagine operating as a registrar in the
int registry would be desirable to anyone (and in any case, it doesn't
seem that int is operating with a multi-registrar model right now).

> Policy development - To register under the .int domain today , the applicant must be an intergovernmental organization that meets the requirements found in the RFC 1591. There should be some base document on the policy (not at ICANN) that state the current policy for registration, and sort out procedures for policy changes in the future. that policy 
> 

RFC 1591 is the base document for that policy.  RFC 3172 is the basis
for the policy that international databases go under arpa instead.  So
it seems to me the relevant base documents are in place.  It is not
clear to me that there are currently procedures (that are not "write a
new RFC that obsoletes either 1591 or 3172") to modify policy now.
Therefore, it seems to me that adding procedures for such policy
changes represents new work above and beyond what is needed for
transition.

To me, transition is ok to happen if everything that is currently
covered is also covered under the new arrangements.  Improvements to
the existing arrangements are not in scope for transition, I think, or
we have no hope of ever finishing work.

Therefore, I do not think that any plan around int is necessary, I
don't think any bylaw change is needed, and therefore I think this
item can be struck from our TODO list.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com