[Ws2-jurisdiction] Blog post on ICANN's jurisdiction

[parminder]

On Saturday 25 February 2017 11:39 AM, Nigel Roberts wrote:
>
>> There is a linguistic problem here. Private sector is understood
>> differently in the US than almost everywhere else.
>
> There may indeed by a linguistic problem as you suggest, since if just
> one person understands a term-of-art different to the rest, as you
> state you do, confusion inevitably obtains.

Nigel, you are being harsh on me -- it is not just me, i have heard
numerous people even in ICANN discussions posit this issue - even from
Europe, at least from the continental Europe.

But lets stick then to authoritative sources, most relevant to issue
under consideration. In the UN and all other substantial global forums,
including the OECD and G 20, private sector means only the for profit
sector ( see this
<https://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/events/691-united-nations-private-sector-forum-2016>,
this <https://www.oecd.org/dac/povertyreduction/34055384.pdf> and this
<www.g20.utoronto.ca/analysis/2000privatesector.html> ) . Does this
close the issue! You may need to reassess who is dancing on a pin here,
I or you/ ICANN.....

"That is our collective contribution to the language! Its direct antonym
is "multilateral" which, it seems to me, you want, and I don't. " (NIgel)

I know that you, and many others here, prefer to fight strawmen than
respond to real arguments (for instances, whats wrong with getting US
immunity with waiver for California non profit law)... And it simply
does not matter if someone says a thousand times that there is no
intention to change ICANN's current structure -- but only the
jurisdictional level, which is even right now governmental. But I know,
for many the US gov smells of all the good things, and other govs,
especially of developing countries stink...  Some hangovers  I'd say....

parminder


>
> But there is not the widespread confusion you imply.
>
> I am oustide the US.  I do not understand the term differently.
>
> "Private sector" is one of those terms which (like when lawyers use
> the terms "convention" or "common law") has multiple subtly different
> meanings which are wholly dependent upon context.
>
> In British English, "private sector" means, pretty much, the same as
> it mean in American English.
>
> Its direct antonym is "public sector".
>
> It therefore means exactly what it says on the tin.
>
> In the debate over socialism and communism in late 19th and most of
> the 20th Century, the controversy over ownership of capital and the
> means of production was between the public sector ("nationalisation")
> and the private sector ("privatised business")
>
> It is true that often "private sector" is used to refer to a
> for-profit structure for business ownership being, e.g., better than a
> bureaucratic socialist model (vide the - mostly - successful
> privatisations by British Governments of both political colours in the
> 1980s and 1990s).
>
> The expression used in the UK when you want to distinguish this kind
> of private sector body from the others is "voluntary sector" or "third
> sector".
>
> This means charities, non-profits and NGOs. But you really are dancing
> on the head of a pin here.
>
>
> ICANN is not private sector since it has governments as a fundamental
> and important part.
>
> It also is not private sector since it has the voluntary sector as a
> fundamental and important part.
>
> But it is undeniably "rooted" in the private sector irrespective of
> which definition you use.
>
> It has been quite fashionable since the aforementioned privatisations
> in the UK for the government to get outof the business of regulation.
> Hence the rise of "self-regulation" in the private sector. An example
> of this is the Phone Paid Service Authority (originally ICSTIS)
> http://psauthority.org.uk/ - a self-regulatory authority that is
> wholly owned by the the private sector that it regulates. (Yes, the
> poachers DO appoint the gamekeeper).
>
> ICANN is different from this exactly because of the participation of
> the public sector (GAC) and the voluntary sector (ALAC).
>
> But ICANN is still a private sector organisation.
>
> And even it, in some contexts you want to distinguish the type of
> organisation that ICANN is from a pure private sector organisation, we
> have coined the term 'multistakeholder' for that purpose.
>
> That is our collective contribution to the language! Its direct
> antonym is "multilateral" which, it seems to me, you want, and I don't.
>
>
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