[CWG-Stewardship] Agenda item 5 - Alternate proposals

[Milton L Mueller]

From: Bertrand de La Chapelle [mailto:bdelachapelle at gmail.com]

As I mentioned on the call, we need to be careful even when we label this "internal to iCANN" solution. Because we then confuse, as we too often do, ICANN staff, ICANN Board and ICANN community.

MM: I am utterly without such confusion, and always have been. When I say ICANN I mean ICANN, Inc. This includes the staff and the board; as the staff is supposed to be doing what the board tells it to do. Indeed, I think it is the people who call for an internal solution who reveal such confusion; they do not distinguish between ICANN’s self-interest as an organization and the community around ICANN who uses its organizational and institutional apparatus to participate in DNS governance.

I think what people exploring alternatives or potential improvements mean is that they want to build upon the existing building blocks of the ICANN community rather than something entirely external.

MM: If that were true, there would be no objections to the MRT-CSC-Contract Co model, because it draws heavily on the ICANN community. Look at the MRT composition I proposed, for example; the most potent criticism that could be made of it is that it mirrors too closely and depends too heavily on ICANN representational organs: GNSO, ccNSO, SSAC, the ACs, etc.

No, my friend, the issue really _is_ whether there are contractual and organizational relations external to the ICANN corporation, or not. So I will continue to refer to any proposal that has no external contracting authority and relies entirely on ICANN bylaw modifications as an internal-to-ICANN solution. Because I value accuracy and clarity.

You are advocating an internal solution.

One of the arguments that I think underpins this effort is the perceived vulnerability of any entirely new, unfunded and unstaffed architecture that would in many ways resemble the vulnerability of the early ICANN.

I have trouble understanding this concern. ICANN entered an almost entirely uninstitutionalized environment in 1997, and was at the center of a huge dispute between Network Solutions (which vastly exceeded ICANN in resources at the time), a rather weak and poor ISOC, and the Department of Commerce. Now we have a very well-solidified transnational policy network formed around ICANN, ICANN is accepted as the policy authority for DNS, and there are much more well-defined relationships with IETF/IAB, registries, international organizations, user groups, and so on. The biggest danger now is that ICANN itself might dominate or overwhelm any new entity and become locked in and unaccountable.

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