[CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Drazek, Keith
kdrazek at verisign.com
Mon Feb 2 15:05:59 UTC 2015
Completely agree with Alan and Robin.
Keith
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Alan Greenberg
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 1:35 PM
To: Robin Gross; Paul Rosenzweig
Cc: 'Accountability Cross Community'
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Correct, a Bylaw alone is not sufficient. What is needed is a way to ensure that if the Board does not follow its Bylaws, the community can take action. Whether that means we can overturn a Board action or force an action (in the case of inaction), remove part or all of the Board, have clear standing to take them to court, or some other remedy or combination of remedies is what we are here for.
Alan
At 31/01/2015 01:05 PM, Robin Gross wrote:
I think we'd need more than a bylaw amendment because the problem is at the level of the enforcement of the bylaws. For example Annex A in ICANN's bylaws describes the way GNSO policy must be made in a bottom-up fashion. The existence of the bylaws has not stopped the staff from changing GNSO policy and the bylaws have not stopped the board from looking the other way when staff does. We need those bylaws enforced and it is the board's job to do that.
So I do not believe a bylaw amendment on its own is sufficient to provide the assurance that the bylaws will be enforced.
Robin
On Jan 30, 2015, at 7:37 PM, Paul Rosenzweig wrote:
I agree Robin. So then what is your view on a Bylaw amendment as a commitment with teeth/inevitability? Prior to this discussion, I was of the view that changing the Bylaws was both a necessary and sufficient condition to satisfy a WS1 requirement. Now I see that we have at least one case scenario where a Bylaw mandate has gone unexecuted for years, despite e.g. the failure being called out in ATRT1 and ATRT2. This makes me concerned that one could, hypothetically, change the Bylaws to require our new membership organization, or the redress mechanism that is my own focus, have the Bylaw passed and written in stone and still not see the actual membership or redress change take effect because ICANN as an institution slow-walks the change. This makes me want to consider strongly whether our phrasing in WS1 of "implemented or committed to" is too loose and ought not to be changed to "implemented" ....
Paul
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From: Robin Gross [ mailto:robin at ipjustice.org]
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 4:19 PM
To: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
I interpret WS1 as those items for which more than mere promises have been made to implement, but rather items where commitments that have some teeth (or inevitability) are in place, such that they couldn't be left lingering indefinitely.
Robin
On Jan 30, 2015, at 12:39 PM, David W. Maher wrote:
+1
David W. Maher
Senior Vice President - Law & Policy
Public Interest Registry
312 375 4849
From: Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at actonline.org<mailto:JZuck at actonline.org>>
Date: Friday, January 30, 2015 2:30 PM
To: Paul Rosenzweig < paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com>>, "'McAuley, David'" <dmcauley at verisign.com<mailto:dmcauley at verisign.com>>, 'Accountability Cross Community' < accountability-cross-community at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>>
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Indeed
Sent from my Windows Phone
From: Paul Rosenzweig<mailto:paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com>
Sent: 1/30/2015 3:29 PM
To: 'McAuley, David'<mailto:dmcauley at verisign.com>; 'Accountability Cross Community'<mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Thank you David for that explanation. To be candid it only heightens my view that the accountability measures the community wants need to be both committed to and actually implemented in place before the IANA transition occurs.
Paul
**NOTE: OUR NEW ADDRESS -- EFFECTIVE 12/15/14 ***
509 C St. NE
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Paul Rosenzweig
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From: McAuley, David [mailto:dmcauley at verisign.com]
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 1:42 PM
To: Paul Rosenzweig; 'Accountability Cross Community'
Subject: RE: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
That is how the DCA Trust IRP panel seemed to see it, Paul.
Bylaw Art. IV, Section 3.6 says this:
There shall be an omnibus standing panel of between six and nine members with a variety of expertise, including jurisprudence, judicial experience, alternative dispute resolution and knowledge of ICANN's mission and work from which each specific IRP Panel shall be selected. The panelists shall serve for terms that are staggered to allow for continued review of the size of the panel and the range of expertise. A Chair of the standing panel shall be appointed for a term not to exceed three years. Individuals holding an official position or office within the ICANN structure are not eligible to serve on the standing panel. In the event that an omnibus standing panel: (i) is not in place when an IRP Panel must be convened for a given proceeding, the IRP proceeding will be considered by a one- or three-member panel comprised in accordance with the rules of the IRP Provider; or (ii) is in place but does not have the requisite diversity of skill and experience needed for a particular proceeding, the IRP Provider shall identify one or more panelists, as required, from outside the omnibus standing panel to augment the panel members for that proceeding.
It is open to some interpretation because it instructs how to choose a panel if a standing panel is not in place. A reasonable (to me) interpretation of the provision is that the alternative way of selecting a panel is for those cases prior to a standing panel being stood up. But it has been years and the introductory language to the bylaw is: "There shall be ..."
Here is the full paragraph of what the DCA Trust IRP panel said in the procedural ruling in August:
114) The need for a compulsory remedy is concretely shown by ICANN's longstanding failure to implement the provision of the Bylaws and Supplementary Procedures requiring the creation of a standing panel. ICANN has offered no explanation for this failure, which evidences that a self-policing regime at ICANN is insufficient. The failure to create a standing panel has consequences, as this case shows, delaying the processing of DCA Trust's claim, and also prejudicing the interest of a competing .AFRICA applicant. ( https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/irp-procedure-declaration-14aug14-en.pdf )
To be fair, this was an interim ruling by a single panel and ICANN would most assuredly not agree with this decision.
To your question, regarding "failed to implement," I would say failed so far. I think Avri's term "lingering" is a good one - this is lingering so far.
David
From: Paul Rosenzweig [ mailto:paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com]
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 11:45 AM
To: McAuley, David; 'Accountability Cross Community'
Subject: RE: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
David
Can you elaborate on this please? This is the first instance I've read of in which it is said that ICANN failed to implement a Bylaw mandate. Is that a fair description? Because if it is, that suggests to me the possibility that even a Bylaw change might not be adequate to satisfy accountability requirements until the bylaw as actually implemented.
Or am I misreading what you are saying?
Paul
**NOTE: OUR NEW ADDRESS -- EFFECTIVE 12/15/14 ***
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From: McAuley, David [mailto:dmcauley at verisign.com]
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 9:26 AM
To: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Another thing that ICANN has let linger (and which is not a recommendation but a bylaw) is the creation of a standing IRP panel that would have "a variety of expertise, including jurisprudence, judicial experience, alternative dispute resolution and knowledge of ICANN's mission and work" to populate panels on individual IRP cases.
The panel in the (still ongoing) IRP case brought by DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust over the handling of the new .africa TLD recognized that the lack of a standing panel had an impact ( https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/irp-procedure-declaration-14aug14-en.pdf ):
"The failure to create a standing panel has consequences, as this case shows, delaying the processing of DCA Trust's claim, and also prejudicing the interest of a competing .AFRICA applicant."
David
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org> [ mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 6:27 PM
To: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Hi,
And unfortunately they ignored the ASEP recommendations. The ASEP was recommended by ATRT1, and its recommendations have been recommend by ATRT2 for the committee working on Accountability it recommended - ie. us.
The fact that those recommendations lingered is indeed why we need the binding bits.
So often we come close, yet at the last minute we let something go undone and the work gets lost.
Stuff like this needs fixing.
avri
On 29-Jan-15 17:37, Kieren McCarthy wrote:
I don't like this line about the Reconsideration Committee not being "understood", Chris.
ICANN's staff and Board have developed the rules by which the committee acts and the way in which it decides to apply those rules. Those rules have also changed over time.
This is part of the problem - ICANN corporate lives within its own world half the time. I can recall several conversations I had with ICANN's general counsel when on staff where he presented me with an entirely different perspective on critical matters to the one that I and much of the community felt existed.
There is an internal body of belief that stands in stark contrast to the outside view. And that body of belief is consciously shielded.
If ICANN wants the Reconsideration Committee to stop being misunderstood, it should rename it the "Policy Process Double-checking Committee".
Or, alternatively, and preferably, changing the functioning of the committee to actually "reconsider" decisions. And include people other than Board members (one of the accountability recommendations made many years ago but never implemented).
Kieren
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Chris Disspain <ceo at auda.org.au<mailto:ceo at auda.org.au>> wrote:
Agree Avri. And whilst the reconsideration request process is widely pilloried it does, in fact, provide a level of accountability. It may not be understood, it may not provide the sort of or level of accountability that is desirable but, I for one, would want it to be improved/expanded rather than see it disappear as in a [very] narrow band of cases it does work.
Cheers,
Chris
On 30 Jan 2015, at 08:34 , Avri Doria <avri at acm.org<mailto:avri at acm.org>> wrote:
Hi,
I think Zero is a wee bit hyperbolic.
I believe that the AOC does provide for accountability in the ATRT reviews.
We also vote on some Board seats and people have lost their seats.
Too slow and not as good as a recall procedure, but accountabilty.
Nomcom also does not always renew terms,
even if the people want them too.
That is also accountability.
The IRT can also provide accountability.
and does.
It is true none of these bind the board,
and that needs fixing,
but I strongly disagree with the statement that there is no accountability.
Sure, none are as stringent as taking out
and executing at dawn (I've been catching up on Marco Polo on Netflix)
but they are accountability,
though of a lesser degree.
avri
On 29-Jan-15 14:14, Jonathan Zuck wrote:
Kieren,
That hard truth here is that while we endeavor to list existing "accountability" mechanisms, there are, in fact, none. It's a complete red herring to explore them as part of this process. There are plenty of opportunities to "vent" but there are, in fact, ZERO accountability mechanisms in place, with the exception often cited but ridiculous "elect a different board." No one wants to hear that but it's the truth. Our goal here, in the near term is essentially to create ONE mechanism of accountability in place, perhaps two. It is my sincere belief that the presence of even a singleaccountability mechanism will go a long way to change the culture inside ICANN because the net result will be to turn the light back on the community to reach consensus. This is a GROSS oversimplification, not meant to inspire nit picking but a return to the task at hand which is to create a framework for reform which, if the community remains motivated, will allow major cultural changes to take place.
JZ
From: Kieren McCarthy [ mailto:kierenmccarthy at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 1:57 PM
To: McAuley, David
Cc: Jonathan Zuck; Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
One more thing from me and then I'll shut up.
I'd be interested to hear from people that have actually gone through the various accountability mechanisms what they thought of the experience.
For example:
* Were you happy with the process?
* Were you happy with the outcome?
* Did you feel your points were understand and considered?
* What would have improved the process for you?
* If you lost, why did you not progress further in the appeal process?
This kind of feedback should be being done by ICANN itself but I'm willing to bet it hasn't been. It's also not that hard to do: their names are publicly available. ICANN has all their contact details. I bet many of them would be happy to talk.
Kieren
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:58 AM, McAuley, David <dmcauley at verisign.com<mailto:dmcauley at verisign.com>> wrote:
Hi Kieran,
Thank you for this human-element discussion, most interesting and helpful for me.
I differ with one remark you made in the last post: "yes, the Board can be overruled but only on issues of process."
It's actually not all that positive, if I have things correctly concerning accountability measures within the ICANN environment (not addressing courts here).
At present the board can be overruled in reconsideration requests - but only by the board itself on, as you say, process issues. This probably does not meet any realistic, objective accountability standard.
In IRP before independent panels, the board can take the panel's decision or leave it - it is nothing more than a recommendation, again on process-based issues.
The IRP panel in the DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust case ruled that it could bind ICANN in a procedural ruling this past year, but ICANN's subsequent arguments before the same panel as well as other IRP panels indicate that it does not accept that decision. It could be interesting to see what ICANN does with the eventual final ruling in the case, depending on whether the panel rules in DCA's favor. .
David McAuley
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org> [mailto: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org>] On Behalf Of Kieren McCarthy
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 11:17 AM
To: Jonathan Zuck
Cc: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Quick thoughts on this:
Yes, what the staff and Board end up doing is partly the community's fault.
Where I do place fault is in both continuing to do so, and failing to make changes despite clear signs that it is not working effectively and is even damaging trust.
The Board seem confused and frustrated that they continue to be yelled at. The community can't believe that the Board still hasn't heard them. I think the gap is the lack of human judgement and the priority of process and legal argument.
I am a big fan of solid changes over long discourse. But what I started to see on this group was a tendency toward process solutions and legal-style decision making.
Just one example: yes, the Board can be overruled but only on issues of process.
This just creates one more layer and process that ICANN will hold up as accountability and the community will be completely dissatisfied with.
ICANN's staff will defend to the hilt the Board's initial decision, creating a fight and tension, limiting discussion and sharing of information, increasing distrust, reinforcing the barrier between Corporate and community.
And this is the big change we introduce this time around.
My fear is that unless we break that habit, there will be another 10 years of dissatisfaction and another group like this one trying again to bring 'accountability' in 2025.
Kieren
-
[sent through phone]
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:35 AM, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at actonline.org<mailto:JZuck at actonline.org>> wrote:
I'm somewhat hesitant to speak up given Malcolm's excellent treatise but a few things spring to mind. The first and simplest is that process still provides a structure the re-humanization you seek. In a large organization if there isn't a way to trigger the group "rethinking" an issue, it will never happen. I believe that while this conversation is emotionally rewarding, we need to be very careful to stay inside our remit to come up with some very specific recommendations for increasing accountability (in a legal sense) to replace the somewhat "legal" accountability that exists today so my first inclination is to table this discussion and get back to work.
My second inclination is to dive in <g> and to come to the defense of the board and ICANN staff a little bit. The buzzing in the back of my head for the past year or so is that the "community" is partially to blame for the environment in which we find ourselves. ICANN is afraid of litigation because we are litigious. The board does our job for us often because we have failed to do it ourselves.
If the result of a policy development process is a failure to find consensus, to compromise, to be "human" as you suggest Kieren, the board is faced with the unenviable task of playing Solomon because the community have essentially abdicated our responsibility. The boards entire job is supposed to ONLY be about process and whether we've followed it. Instead, we present the board with unfinished work, expect them to "rule" on it and threaten to sue if we don't get our way. If the board is guilty of anything in this context, it is their willingness to accept this challenge, which I suggest is dehumanizing because, like Solomon, they are not in the best position to find a solution and often create arbitrary compromise which is the number one characteristic of an arbitration environment. More often than not, the board should simply reject the unfinished work and send it back to the community to get it done right. So I think there's a lot to Kieren's concern but I think the community plays a significant role in the problem and must therefore play a significant role in the solution and I'm ready for us to tackle it.
All that said, it's not really relevant to the task at hand. Obviously this whole situation has us "navel gazing<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphaloskepsis>," and that's not all bad but we do have a very specific task to accomplish in the here and now and we would do well to focus on that alone, at least for the time being.
My two cents
Jonathan
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org> [ mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Kieren McCarthy
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 9:39 AM
To: Malcolm Hutty
Cc: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] The big test of effective accountability
Like this. Excellent food for thought.
Will dig out Steve's mission email - had completely missed it. You have the email header handy?
Kieren
-
[sent through phone]
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 6:00 AM, Malcolm Hutty <malcolm at linx.net<mailto:malcolm at linx.net>> wrote:
On 29/01/2015 11:45, Bruce Tonkin wrote:
> In terms of reviewing the new gTLD program
Kieren may correct me, but I read his essay as being about more than
just the gTLD program alone, albeit that that was the example given. I
read it as a general complaint that ICANN tends to be to formalistic,
and loses sight of the substance of the issue, not only in gTLD
applications, but often. And I think that he's far from alone in that
view, especially amongst those who engage with ICANN peripherally rather
than intensively.
> I compare this to a jury process in the legal system. I don't think
> you can just ask for another jury to hear the case when the first
> jury finds against you. There needs to be some basis for the appeal
> other than that you disagree with the initial finding.
[...]
> So careful work is needed to ensure that we have a process that
> ensures independent reviews of decisions, and also appropriate
> criteria to initiate a review of a decision.
There I think you get to the heart of the matter.
Kieren's complaint about formalism is interesting insofar as it goes,
and I think it is a very useful contribution, but it is only identifies
a problem, it doesn't analyse it or propose a solution. I would like to
try to work from where Kieren left off.
Kieren, you're a journalist. You live and breathe five-Ws and an H.
Let's apply that here.
WHAT's the problem? (Excessive legal formalism, resulting in loss of
sight of the substance of the question).
WHY do we have that problem?
WHO caused it and who can address that?
HOW should it be addressed?
(OK, I'm leaving out "when". Cut me some slack.)
WHY do we have the excessive legalistic formalism Kieren complains about?
To some extent, this is characteristic of all large bureaucracies. They
are instinctively defensive, and any individual within them wants to
show that they discharged their own responsibilities properly even -
perhaps especially - when they don't, as an individual, necessarily
agree personally with the organisation position.
But Kieren suggests that ICANN is particularly susceptible to this
tendency, and I think I agree. An organisation with a highly empowered
single leader (think Apple under Steve Jobs) can cut through process
easily. I imagine an early conversation at Apple going like this:
Product Manager: We assembled focus groups in all our major target
markets to identify the key characteristics of a
revolutionary, magical new phone. We planted the best
UI theorists in those groups, to guide them towards
characteristics and away from mere features. We then
tested the output with surveys from the best polling
companies, scientifically designed to ensure all user
groups had balanced representation. Using their
answers we ranked and prioritised development goals.
We hired the best and brightest designers to deliver
against that design brief, and I proudly present,
the You-Phone.
Steve Jobs: The user experience sucks and it feels like it was
designed by a committee. Go back and start again.
Would we want ICANN to work like this? No! We'd be rightly terrified of
leaving that much power in one person's hands. We want ICANN to be run
by the community, with the Board acting as an arm of the community
conducting executive oversight, not ruled by any single Global King of DNS.
So we create structures designed to ensure that everybody's voice is
heard and that everybody's interests are taken into account, that
competing positions are balanced as fairly as it is possible to be, and
that decisions are demonstrably rationally arrived at on the basis of
previously agreed consensus policy. And we create more structures to
appeal cases to on the basis that any of those things failed in this
instance.
And we end up with the legalistic formalism of which Kieren speaks.
Why?
I suggest that it is because we have such a diverse community, and so
the only thing we agree on is the process criteria. We agree that
everybody should be heard. We agree that there should be periods of
public comment, and then further periods of reply comment. We agree that
policy should require consensus support. But we're so anxious that that
might be the only thing we agree on that we stop there. And so when a
decision looks bad, the only thing we have to fall back on is an appeal
to process.
And mostly the process was followed (at least in a narrow sense) so it's
very hard to reverse the decision, even if you might like to (as Bruce
has described). And the dissatisfied party becomes embroiled in an
increasingly embittered proxy fight with an increasingly defensive
bureaucracy, when everybody knows that the gravamen of the complaint
isn't really about process at all, it is, as Kieren says, about the
substance.
Some would say this means we need to "unshackle" the Board, to give them
a wide-ranging and broad discretion to "do the right thing", or
sometimes "to take decision based in the public interest". Removing or
reducing external constraints would enable "effective leadership" and
give the Board "flexibility to respond to a changing world" without
being "buried in legal challenges".
I consider such an approach to be a trap. Those arguments are the same
arguments one would make if an avowed enemy of community accountability.
Following such recommendations will lead inevitably to a Board with a
top-down, paternalistic view of governing the community at best, if not
something even worse.
Instead, let us look to other I* communities, which do not seem to have
the same problem, to see how the IETF and the RIRs maintain genuine
bottom-up community governance, and at the same time remain focused on
the substance.
Let me tell a story about how one of the RIRs recently dealt with a
potentially difficult problem.
Towards the end of last year, on the mailing list for the RIPE NCC, a
Ukrainian who seemed to be a partisan of the government in Kiev, and an
opponent of the regime in Crimea and Donetsk, raised a point about the
rules. RIPE NCC rules say that organisations applying from IP addresses
must supply government issued ID, he said. Why does the RIPE NCC
continue to serve users in Crimea? Does the RIPE NCC accept the validity
of the Donetsk regime? On what basis and with what justification? Surely
the only proper course is for the RIPE NCC to cease to support
organisations in Crimea until the legitimately recognised government of
Ukraine is restored in the region (I am using his voice, you understand,
not my own, but this is a paraphrase, not a direct quote).
The RIPE community immediately saw this intervention for what it was in
substance: an attempt to embroil the RIPE NCC in the ongoing regional
conflict, on the side to which he was partisan. It was not really a
genuine enquiry about the rules, it was an attempt to force a legalistic
interpretation that would subvert their intended substance.
And the RIPE community responded swiftly, vocally, and overwhelmingly of
one view. The mission of RIPE NCC is to support users by helping to
coordinate the distribution of IP addresses to those that need them.
Networks in Crimea need IP addresses. This does not change because the
legitimacy of the claimed government with effective control of the
region is disputed. Many members of the RIPE Community had considerable
sympathy with the Ukrainian partisan, and deep personal opposition to
Russian intervention in Eastern Ukraine. Nonetheless, they agreed on one
thing: the geopolitics of the Ukraine is not the responsibility of the
RIPE NCC. The rule requiring government issued ID is there to support
RIPE NCC's mission to coordination IP address distribution so that
networks are allocated the address space they require (so that RIPE NCC
can identify the entities to which it has made allocations); to apply
the same rule to prevent IP address block allocation would be to subvert
the mission. While there is no universally recognised government in
Eastern Ukraine, the RIPE NCC should accept such ID from entities in
that area as they are reasonably able to provide.
This story, I think, exemplifies the ability to cut to the substance of
the issue that Kieren seeks. How is it arrived at? Not by the
introduction of any strong central leader: the NCC staff and Board was
almost silent while this discussion played out amongst the community.
It was arrived at because the community had a strongly unified sense of
its own limited mission (to support the distribution of IP addresses to
those that need them, through coordinated allocation policies) and the
members of that community were overwhelmingly willing to set aside their
own views on a matter outside the scope of that mission when it was
suggested that some other reasoning requires an effect fundamentally
contrary to the mission. We will not have an argument about whether RIPE
NCC should act to /limit/ the allocation of IP addresses to entities in
Crimea, not even dressed in the coat of a rules interpretation. Maybe
action should be taken against the regime in Crimea - but not by RIPE
NCC. RIPE NCC will discharge its own mission, and leave the geopolitics
to others.
Is this not the same culture we want to inculcate in ICANN?
I believe that story exemplifies the strength of the RIRs, and describes
exactly what we want from ICANN too.
And it is very far from the ICANN Kieren describes.
WHO can bring this change about?
Only us.
When we look to Kieren's complaint, and see how far short ICANN falls of
the strong culture shows by the RIRs and the IETF, the "fault" lies with
us, the community. We don't *want* the Board, or the CEO, or the staff
to come up with a dramatically developed version of the ICANN Mission
that will then overrule existing processes and policies.
The Mission must be developed by, and founded in, the community itself.
What we need is for the community to develop a much clearer idea of the
Mission, and an exposition of what that means and how it is to be
applied. Then all the accountability structures we create, the Review
Boards and Reconsideration Panels and Ombudsmen and the rest, they will
have a proper standard for review. Not a sterile standard that looks
only to bare process, but one that asks "Is this consistent with the
fundamental mission?"
Consider how this might work in practice.
For .gay, there are many objections one might make. One might say the
proposed registrar was not suitable - but that should only lead to the
selection of an alternative, or the imposition of tighter control, not
to refusal to delegate. If you're not confident in the registrar you
might impose behavioural controls (e.g. to prevent limitation of supply)
or structural controls (e.g. a shorter contract, to require renunciation
of any presumption of renewal of the registry contract etc) or some
combination of the two. There will be plenty of room for arguments about
the best way to proceed.
But arguments that resolve to (or are recognisable as a mere pretext
for) the claim that .gay ought not to exist can be dismissed: ICANN's
mission is to make domains available, not to prevent their availability.
I promised a HOW.
Here is HOW I think we should proceed.
In our Frankfurt face-to-face we constructed, yet again, a map of
possible new structures, and most of the focus went on that. But there
was also a slot on it for the question of clarifying the mission, as the
basis for review. A few weeks ago, on this list, Steve DelBianco made a
very valuable start, suggesting a new codification of the mission. That
contribution has passed almost without notice.
I don't necessarily think Steve's formulation is perfect, but it's a lot
better than anything else I've yet seen, and it has the virtue of being
a contribution on this critical subject, almost alone. Let us work
together on that, to build that common shared sense of Mission.
Not an infinitely broad Mission, intended to allow any possible action
in an unknowable future, but a narrow mission, intended to guide, to
help make decisions which are choices, that can, as Bruce says, act as a
meaningful criterion for review of decisions.
Let us have the courage to believe we can build a strong consensus on a
meaningfully limited mission, not merely on narrow questions of process.
If we can succeed in that, we can succeed in creating an ICANN that is
meaningfully accountable to the community on matters of essential
substance, not merely failures of process.
Kind Regards,
Malcolm.
--
Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523<x-msg://520/tel:%2B44%2020%207645%203523>
Head of Public Affairs | Read the LINX Public Affairs blog
London Internet Exchange | http://publicaffairs.linx.net/
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