[CCWG-ACCT] Global Public Interest discussion

[Mueller, Milton L]

Thomas:
Thanks for taking the time to respond carefully to the concerns raised on the list about the GPI discussion. I found the first part of your response quite satisfactory (who you asked and what you wanted to accomplish). Thanks for that clarification!

On the 3rd part, however, (impact on our discussions), I am troubled.

There is an obvious disconnect between using GPI as a standard and ICANN’s mission statement. The recent intervention by Mr. Carvell illustrates this. On the one hand we have worked hard to define a very specific and limited mission for ICANN; on the other hand once you invoke “the global public interest” we create pressure for ICANN to become an institution for performing a laundry list of good deeds, lifting up the poor and delivering social justice to the world in ways that may easily exceed what we currently understand as its mission. ICANN as Mother Theresa. No, please – I can’t think of a better way to blow a gaping hole in any mission limitations.

The benchmark for the GPI, insofar as it is relevant at all in the CCWG, is that it is in the GPI for ICANN to perform its mission, and _only_ its mission, properly. It is also in the GPI for ICANN to be accountable to its stakeholders. Can we agree on that? IMHO, that’s really all we need to say about the GPI.

Once that is accepted, we can debate what exceeds the mission and what doesn’t; we can debate what powers are necessary for ICANN to execute its  mission; and we can debate what mechanisms and processes make ICANN appropriately accountable to its stakeholders without interfering with its mission. But we must not have a discussion about ICANN and GPI that is disconnected from its mission and from its accountability.

As I have said before, the fact that ICANN can object to accountability measures in the name of a GPI does not mean we should be having a discussion about the meaning and implications of GPI; GPI is just a label for the board’s objection. The real debate is about which accountability measures are appropriate and tuned to ICANN’s mission.

--MM


From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Rickert
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 2:50 PM
To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Global Public Interest discussion

Dear all,
following our last CCWG call, we had reached out to our advisors to get input on the question of Global Public Interest (GPI). Below, you find the response we got from Jan Aart Scholte, which we pass on to the list with his permission.

On our list, there has been quite some discussion on the question of GPI and also some confusion on

1. whom we asked
2. what we wanted to achieve with the question and
3. what the impact of the discussion on our work would be, if any.

With this note, we would like to offer some responses to the above points.

Ad 1

Some of you wrote that we should not get the lawyers involved in defining the GPI for various reasons. Please note that we have asked the Advisors that were picked by the Public Expert Group.

We have not asked (nor do we intend to) ask our legal advisors, i.e. Holly and Rosemary and her teams to deal with this. As a reminder, all requests to the lawyers need to be certified and are then added to a public list, which can be seen here:

https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=52896826

Requests, their status and the answers are published on that page.

Ad 2

With its comments, the ICANN Board has raised GPI concerns with some of our recommendations. It should go without saying that the Co-Chairs take these concerns seriously. While discussing this input, some of you (I think the idea came from Kavouss) suggested to investigate this further.


Therefore, we have suggested to the CCWG to seek input from our independent advisors in addition to the clarifications we have asked form the Board on their application of GPI considerations. This request was supported by the CCWG. The goal is not to work on a definition of the GPI, but to better understand what definitions there are and what the impact on our work could be. Jan has kindly responded in line with views that have already been expressed by some of you on the list, i.e. that there is no easy answer to the question and that there is no universally applicable definition.

We should therefore be able to put the discussion on this at rest.

Ad 3

As said before, our group should continue analyzing comments and refine the recommendations where necessary to finalize consensus recommendations. While doing so, we should be conscious that the Board will apply the test whether or not our recommendations are in the GPI. Ideally, there would be no issues with the GPI as I am sure no one in our group intends to be working on recommendations that are not in the GPI.

We therefore recommend we should offer information on the GPI implications (or the lack thereof) in our final report. A rationale with respect to GPI will ensure that not only the Board, but also NTIA and the whole community understands that we are taking GPI concerns seriously. We think that offering a GPI related rationale is valuable for transparency reasons and we hope that it will help everyone understand that and why our final recommendations do not or will not be against the GPI.

Some of you have stated that our work on GPI will not prevent the Board from raising GPI concerns and this is certainly true. However, we are convinced that

- being transparent on our view on GPI as described above and
- inviting the Board to work with us even closer during this final phase and encouraging the Board to raise any issues in the process (see our e-mail to Steve Crocker)

will help reduce the risk of GPI concerns being identified by the Board at a later stage.

We hope this help and welcome your input of this recommendation to include a « GPI rationale » as part of our recommendations.

Kind regards,
Leon Sanchez
Mathieu Weill
Thomas Rickert
---
rickert.net<http://rickert.net>

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