[CWG-Stewardship] Principles: revised draft 9 March

[Milton L Mueller]

From: Martin Boyle [mailto:Martin.Boyle at nominet.org.uk]

Yes, it is a difficult topic and partly because people do interpret national sovereignty in different ways.  But, as you know, for the GAC, reference to national sovereignty is crucial.

MM: Not really. What is needed is not a vague "reference to" national sovereignty, but the elimination of any opportunity for one state to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction via the DNS root. That is a far more clearly specified way in which IANA actions might negatively impinge on legitimate sovereignty interests, but it avoids any claim that states have sovereignty over the root per se, which is a claim that we cannot and must not entertain. I reiterate: you need to think about the implications of telling 192 states that they have sovereignty over a shared global resource. Sovereignty is a claim of exclusivity.

You need to think of 7.ii in relation to the chapeau text, "decisions and actions of the IANA Functions Operator should be made objectively based on policy agreed to through the recognised bottom-up multi-stakeholder processes. As such, decisions and actions of the IANA Functions Operator should..."  In other words, this is about the difference between gTLDs and ccTLDs and marks that US extraterritoriality should not overrule the appropriate national or local processes under which the registry is operated.  So IANA could not turn around and say to a ccTLD, you must submit to the gTLD WHOIS policy, for example.

MM: That is precisely my point. As I said above, this I have no trouble with, indeed, I passionately support the point made above. That kind of a statement contributes something useful and positive, whereas a blanket reference to sovereignty would encourage precisely the kind of extraterritorial assertions of authority that we don't want to happen.

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