[CCWG-ACCT] Is it reasonable to avoid new mechanisms?

[Salaets, Ken]

+1.  As per our comments, ITI supports keeping CCWG-A 2.0 as the basis for the eventual proposal that gets forwarded to NTIA.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 5:38 PM
To: accountability-cross-community at icann.org
Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Is it reasonable to avoid new mechanisms?

Hi,

The  Board's critique rests on a notion that the introduction of anything new in the ICANN system will be a destabilizing factor and most be avoided.

This ignores the fact that by removing the NTIA backstop we destabilize the current system. It might have been possible to find a new balance (not that the old worked that well given the amount of discontent that existed prior to the CCWG process) by tweaking the system.  The early work of the CCWG, however, showed that this was not enough.  So we decided to bring back a notion that existed in the early ICANN design, the idea of membership.  Membership has always been part of the kit that was available to ICANN in the multistakeholder model.  An initial experiment met with some issues and instead of fixing that then, they threw the notion away without exploring possible tweaks to the system. 
As a result we are living in ICANN 2.0, a system that was  imposed in a top down manner and one that was never fully accepted by those at the bottom.

Now, albeit in a very different configuration, the CCWG is proposing to establish a community consensus based idea of membership. I believe that this should be given a fair analysis before rejecting it.  It is also important to remember that the NTIA requirements were not a prohibition of new mechanisms or structures, but rather evidence that these structure did not increase the current risk, or fact, of capture and that they could be held to account.

The Board criticism is important to look at for arguments that show the areas in which the CCWG plan either does not explain its protections against capture and its accountability checks and balances or may have gaps in these areas. If we cannot explain what we propose, or cannot close the gaps, then it becomes time to consider variations on the model or another model altogether. In my opinion, we are not there.

avri


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