[CWG-Stewardship] Points of agreement and difference

[Jordan Carter]

Hi all

Some thoughts, that are thinking aloud more than any kind of personal or
organisational definitive position...

Most of us seem to agree that:

- the community should be able to assign the IANA functions to another
operator (the "who decides" question)
- such a reassignment should only happen after a clear escalation path that
provides teeth to solve problems
- the need is for a durable and reliable way to achieve this principle

There seems to be disagreement about:

- the practicality and durability differences between a bylaws-based
internal way to allow separation and an external/contract co based way of
doing so
- the pros and cons of each model in a balanced way between internal and
external assuming both are legally durable and workable - e.g.
  - accountability issues and outcomes
  - resource requirements to operate
  - perception issues within ICANN and more broadly
- the linkage of this decision to the overall accountability picture for
ICANN (no contract with an external party v contract with an external party


I still think that the hybrid model in terms of stronger functional or
structural separation of the IANA operations from ICANN the corporation
(the hybrid models) is a separate category of beast. It is desirable to
have IANA more separated in terms of clarity of budget, operational
responsibility, personnel, policy v implementation, etc etc - regardless of
whether this makes separating it easier. It's about how that debate relates
to the likely maintenance and improvement of its performance, where clear
accountabilities of that sort should help.

I should be clear as I have said before that I regard many of the points of
disagreement as practical and evidence based, depending a lot on:
a) the specifics of each model in detail
b) clearly agreed criteria against which to test the models - stress tests
included, as piloted by the CCWG in respect of their work
c) the linkage with accountability improvements more broadly


Since people are asking me, I should state that my own view is

a) at a systemic level, we have a responsibility to consider the benefits
of concentrating the responsibility for all this work in one entity versus
a more distributed solution (the status quo is more distributed, between
NTIA and ICANN)
b) in implementing separability, both an internal and an external model
could probably work legally,
c) the factors by which we should choose between them probably revolve
around
 - the point at a) - is the global situation of DNS stewardship best served
by distribution of roles or concentration;
 - important but secondary matters like accountability, response to stress
testing, of the detailed models


I've said a number of times that I am not religious about this debate. If
we can have a workable internal solution that is consistent with what we
need, I don't see why we should not have it. The Sidley comments so far
help persuade that in a narrow sense either an external or an internal
model could work.

If that is the case, then it is the bigger picture (distributed v
concentrated stewardship, and detail of implementation and the second order
merits etc), that will end up being the deciding factors.


What do you reckon?

Let's see what we get out of this session....

cheers
Jordan



-- 
Jordan Carter

Chief Executive
*InternetNZ*

04 495 2118 (office) | +64 21 442 649 (mob)
jordan at internetnz.net.nz
Skype: jordancarter

*A better world through a better Internet *
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cwg-stewardship/attachments/20150327/38323a21/attachment.html>