Comments on ICANN R3 paper on making ICANN Relevant, Responsive and Respected
A Working Group within ICANN's At-Large has produced a paper outlining a radical look at ICANN and ICANN's structure. This paper is called:
At-Large White Paper on Future Challenges entitled Making ICANN Relevant, Responsive and Respected (R3) [PDF, 109 KB]
And comes in several languages
First I must out myself in relation to the R3 paper, I am a member of the At-Large Future Challenges WG that produced this paper. I was not an author, but I have been an active commentator. Though they did not take all my edits, they took many. I agreed with the release of the paper for community review even though there were edits I wanted done that did not get done.
Although I do not agree with everything in the R3 paper, I think it is a necessary thought piece.
For example, we all know that the GNSO is messed up. I think most everyone can recognize that the strict direemption of the Council into Houses and the Houses into Stakeholder Groups was a really bad idea that does not lead to consensus or even good management of the GNSO.
We see stakeholders who want to be involved but can't get involved because their don't fit the prevailing US vs.THEM organizational architecture.
We see attempts to shoehorn new stakeholders into groups that don't really fit.
We have inconsistent application for the Constituency/Stakeholder mandate from the Board.
In the Contracted Partie House, we see a situation where soon, just about every company will belong in both of the Stakeholder groups, as subsidiaries of the same company will be able join different Stakeholder groups.
In the NonContracted Parties House, we have to recognize that the world is not strictly divided between the Non-Commercial and Commercial and there are Registrant/User groups that have both aspects, and that there are a variety of technical stakeholders who need a better Stakeholder representation model.
We see that Intellectual and other Property interests come in both Commercial and Non-Commercial flavors; why can't both be part of the same Stakeholder group?
We see a constant attempt by some to say the GNSO Council is just a policy council and that it does not lead the GNSO, as part of their attempt to set up an independent leadership structure.
All sorts of issues and questions point to the GNSO needing a serious review. I think there is wide agreement that the GNSO needs to be be turned on its head and inside out. R3 gives us one context in which to think about it.
Mostly, though, we have to review the notion of the regulated, Registrars and Registries, having an effective veto in regard to the regulation of their activities. This is a vestige of the early days where the nature of the picket fence gave the illusion that a regular contract was being changed after signing. But once we realize that these contracts are not regular contracts but are part of the multistakeholder regulatory model, it becomes less obvious that Contracted Parties should have an effective veto over changes to the regulations. Certainly they should have a fully participatory set of roles and responsibilities in the modification of regulations, but never a veto. Until that gets fixed, ICANN remains vulnerable to calls of Conflict of Interest and malfeasance.
The current GNSO organization is the result of an experimental solution to the requirements of the previous GNSO review. This experiment has failed. It is time to undo it. I think the contributions from R3 should, and will, be fed into the analysis that is done on the upcoming GNSO review.
I think that ICANN is a new form of multistakeholder regulatory organization. It has certainly made this claim on many occasions. I think that the ICANN multistakeholder community should have something to say about the ccTLDs. It is ridiculous that ccTLDs are not bound by the same basic rules as the gTLDs. Sure, issues of administration have a sovereign aspect to them, but the basic registrant and user protection should be equivalent. I admit I have more sympathy for the ccTLD that focuses on their country, and its diaspora, than I do for those who walk and quack as though they were gTLDs; except, that is, for when it comes to responsibilities including registrant and user protection. I understand that this is linked to the nature of ICANN as an organization subject to California law. I have argued and keep arguing for progress on the evolution of becoming a free standing organization, with appropriate multistakeholder oversight, that is hosted by several countries without being subject to their political whim and whimsy. I understand the need for a continuing ability to make and enforce contracts and I think their are many countries that offer a solid basis for contractual agreement. Perhaps ICANN can learn to work with a set of contractual bases instead of just one. In any case, I think it is important that all TLDs have a similar basic regulatory aspect and R3 opens up this topic for discussion.
Some have argued that the only reason for R3 was because ALAC wanted to increase their power. I do not care that ALAC and GAC want to increase their power, in fact I think ALAC advice should be taken seriously, and I have argued for a long time that the ALAC should get the same by-laws based consideration as the GAC in terms of advice that reaches full and active consensus (and yes, I think the GAC criteria should be full and active consensus which it may or not be at the moment - who can tell). Likewise, the GNSO and the ccNSO want to hold on to power. What else is new? If power analysis is your thing, then everything is about power. When I was studying Chemistry in my long distant youth, I discovered that everything is about Chemistry - then dropped out of Chemistry in favor of Philosophy. And if [economics, gender theory, Political Science, Marxism, anthropology, queer theory, sociology ...] is your thing, then everything is about [economics, gender theory, Political Science, Marxism, anthropology, queer theory, sociology ...] . Personally I beleive in a multi-denominational analysis, and argue that part of the thought in regard to R3 is generally about organizational failure and that this must be taken seriously if we want to fix ICANN in a sustainable way.
There are those who stridently condem R3 and all other attempts to do serious review of ICANN in these 'dangerous times'.
They make veiled references to the boogeymen at the door that a ready to eviscerate our ICANN.
They say that criticism of ICANN is traitorous and delivers it unto its enemies.
In my view if we want to destroy ICANN I think it would help to just cross our arms and say how dare the ALAC criticize the GNSO, the ccNSO or anything else. How dare they say there is a Rhinoceros hiding in the room. Let's not commit suicide by shutting our minds to the views of others about the things that may be broken in our corner of Internet ecosystem,
