[CCWG-ACCT] got some lawyerly answers on membership structure

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

Keith,

To respond to your question --

Other than the unique circumstance that one contractee -- Verisign 
Global Registry Service -- is, for historical reasons, one of the Root 
Zone Management (RZM) partners, and, as you mention, someone's employer, 
can anyone suggest a meaningful difference of interests in the continued 
function of the Root Management Zone between, say, a delegee's interests 
and a contractee's interests?

Having worn both hats, I can't think of any.

Feel free to point out something I missed, because if both ccTLDs and 
gTLDs have the same interest in the continued function of the Root 
Management Zone, then since this interest isn't unique to delegees and 
contractees, neither are necessary to provide oversight of that 
continued function.

Whether there is some other interest that requires the inclusion of 
delegees and/or contractees in some membership oversight scheme is 
possible. Consistency and correctness of policy implemented by the Root 
Zone Management (RZM) partners, as Eberhard points out (and as I thought 
was common knowledge among those of us with 10+ years of involvement), 
is such an interest, which of course, is not shared by contractees, 
which are governed solely by contract.

To restate: a possible membership model need not include duplicated 
interests, and the interest in the continued function of the Root 
Management Zone is sufficiently general that no claim of interest in it 
must promote the claimant to member status, whatever that may be in the 
cloud of "membership" proposals.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon

On 1/28/15 11:58 AM, Drazek, Keith wrote:
>
> Eric,
>
> To be clear, no one has ever said that, “…only registries can provide 
> the necessary oversight of the Board as it relates to the continued 
> function of the Root Zone Management.” Where did you get that?
>
> In order for any accountability structure to be meaningful and 
> acceptable, it should represent all members of the community and there 
> should be appropriate balance among all community participants and 
> interests.
>
> As an employee of a gTLD Registry and Chair of the GNSO Registries 
> Stakeholder Group, I can state definitively that we have a strong 
> interest in ICANN’s accountability to us and to the rest of the community.
>
> I find your suggestion that registries might not have a place in a 
> possible cross-community membership model odd, to say the least.
>
> Regards,
>
> Keith
>
> *From:*accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org 
> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] *On Behalf 
> Of *Eric Brunner-Williams
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 28, 2015 12:51 PM
> *To:* accountability-cross-community at icann.org
> *Subject:* Re: [CCWG-ACCT] got some lawyerly answers on membership 
> structure
>
> On 1/28/15 8:50 AM, Drazek, Keith wrote:
>
>     If a ccTLD manager is not a member of the ccNSO, is paying no fees
>     to ICANN and is not bound by ccNSO policy, please help me
>     understand how they are impacted and why they would care about the
>     ICANN Board's accountability mechanisms to its community. I fully
>     understand why every TLD registry cares about the IANA functions
>     and changes to the root zone file, but our issue of greater ICANN
>     Accountability is a broader discussion than the IANA-specific
>     concerns and accountability mechanisms currently being addressed
>     via the CWG Transition.
>
>
> It is not so very long ago that a (previous) Executive and (previous) 
> Board made changes requested by delegees of iso3166 code points 
> conditional upon a form of agreement. The policy pursued by that 
> Executive and that Board were not subject to substantive community 
> review (notice and comment) prior to being implemented, with the 
> accountability issue I hope many, not just the directly concerned, 
> still recall.
>
> Additionally, the interests of parties (of any type) need not 
> encompass the union of all interests of all parties in the mechanisms 
> and policies relating to accountability.
>
> The pursuit of the narrow self-interest of a hypothetical ccTLD, or 
> gTLD, delegee or contractual party, through its operator, should not, 
> by itself, remove a party pursuing its narrow self-interest from what 
> ever may eventually be a body of "members". Were it so, the removed 
> would be at least some of those the USG observed in the AOC which 
> constitute " a group of participants that engage in ICANN's processes 
> to a greater extent than Internet users generally."
>
> However, given the general awareness that the continued function of 
> the Root Zone Management (RZM) partners is of fundamental importance, 
> and the limited interest _as_delegees_or_contractees_ in issues other 
> than the continued function of the Root Zone Management (RZM) 
> partners, it seems unnecessary to encumber the problem of 
> accountability-via-membership (already quite difficult if not 
> intractable, in my opinion) with notions that delegees and 
> contractees, as delegees or contractees, contribute an interest absent 
> but for their status as "members", whether represented en toto, or as 
> self-organized aggregates, or by lottery.
>
> In simple terms, why registries-as-members at all? Does anyone believe 
> only registries can provide the necessary oversight of the Board as it 
> relates to the continued function of the Root Zone Management?
>
> I think that the function of the Board is general oversight of the 
> registries, arising from its technical coordination of unique endpoint 
> identifiers delegated authority, and contractual oversight arising 
> from its delegated contracting authority, so the assumption that 
> registries have a necessary place in a hypothetical membership model 
> is one that should be examined carefully for self-interest and 
> self-dealing, as well as for necessity and utility.
>
> Eric Brunner-Williams
> Eugene, Oregon
>
>
>
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