[Ws2-jurisdiction] ISSUE - unilateral jurisdiction of one country over ICANN

[parminder]

Issue:

Various branches and agencies of the United States of America - from
judicial and legislative to executive, including its many regulatory
agencies - have exclusive (like no other country's) direct legal remit
and power over ICANN, as a US non-profit organisation, with respect to
practically every aspect that can conceivably be affected by state power
(their range is so enormous that it is vain to begin listing them).
These agencies/ y can and do exercise them at any time in pursuance of
US law and policies, that have the primary purpose to uphold US public
interest and US constitution. Many examples of such powers and their
possible use have been given invarious public submissions
<https://community.icann.org/display/WEIA/Jurisdiction+Questionnaire> to
this group, including this one
<https://community.icann.org/display/WEIA/Jurisdiction+Questionnaire?preview=/64066898/64948025/ICANN_jurisdiction_questionaire_-_JNC_response-0001.pdf>
, and also this
<https://www.itforchange.net/sites/default/files/Jurisdiction%20of%20ICANN.pdf>.
Since ICANN is supposed to make policies and implement them with regard
to the global DNS in the global public interest and not just US public
interest, such unilateral availability and use of legal state power with
one country, the US, over ICANN is untenable, and goes against basic
principles of democracy including of "no legislation/ policy without
representation". These principles are recognised by UN instruments as
human rights, and most countries today including the US are built over
them.

Proposed solution:

ICANN be granted immunity under the International Organisations
Immunities Act of the US. This immunity should be tailored/customised in
a manner that ICANN still remains subject to non profit law of the state
of California under which it is registered, and its organisational
processes function, and other such US laws and institutions that are
strictly required for ICANN to be able to satisfactorily carry out its
organisational, policy and technical functions (an assessment with
respect to which should be undertaken asap).


Additional notes:

If I may add, this has been "THE" jurisdiction question since the WSIS
days if not earlier ( actually since the time ICANN was formed). Whether
or not we are able to agree to recommending any solution to this
jurisdiction question, it will be an unacceptable travesty of facts and
history if this group does not accept this as an important, if not
"THE", jurisdiction question in relation to ICANN.

Whether or not this group is able to contribute to global public
interest by making any positive progress on the question of ICANN's
jurisdiction, following the principles of good governance and democracy,
let it not regress and actually serve to obfuscate what is seen and
known as the "ICANN's jurisdiction" question by everyone, by the global
public at large. (For instance, in ICANN's own internal discussions like
when the ICANN chair commissioned this report
<https://archive.icann.org/en/psc/corell-24aug06.html>on the
jurisdiction issue).

If we can accept that this is a key jurisdiction (even if not "THE")
question, but are not able to agree on a proposed solution, let us just
write that in our report. But let us not contribute to alt-truth, a very
dangerous phenomenon that is often spoke of nowadays. Both as a group,
and individually as responsible persons - given an important global
political responsibility -- we owe at least that much to ourselves.

As for myself, and the groups that I work with, we will stand resolutely
till the end in the path of any such synthesis of artificial reality -
when a global group tasked to address the decades old democratic
question of unilateral jurisdiction of one country over the global
governance body, ICANN, comes up with a report that asserts that this is
not a jurisdiction issue at all, or at least not an important one. 

parminder






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