[ncdnhc-discuss] governments and ICANN

[Chris Bailey]

Sorry, for the length of this mailing, but it seems to me a very important 
discussion has started that requires some considerable thought.

Dear Jamie,

Having followed your contributions to the NCDNHC over quite a long period I 
certainly do not think you are bigoted, ignorant or arrogant. I have 
generally found your contributions to be anything but that. However, in 
your present argument concerning imposing the "benefits" of US democracy on 
the rest of the world I think you are making a serious mistake.

First of all, as Dany is essentially pointing out, there are different 
conceptions and traditions of democracy. In particular, there is a big 
difference between the US (and to a large degree British) conception of 
democracy as "freedom from government" (based on John Locke) and the 
European continental conception (Rechtsstaat, etat de droit, stato di 
diritto, etc). As Dany says:

>Not sure I could circumvent the problem shortly, but I would say first,
>that there is a fundamental difference between US and (some) other
>developped countries, in the way and the spirit, the Constitution was
>written. To make is short, the US constitution is perceived to protect
>the citizen from the government, whereas the French constitution is
>aiming to protect the government from the citizen. Your 1st amendement
>illustrates that, while in France, we tend to recognize that the
>governement decisions or the Parliament laws, are made by elected
>people, with a recognized legitimacy (being in a political majority or
>minority is a different problem).

I think what needs to be added is that, whilst the US conception is based 
on "individual" democracy, Europe has a strong tradition of "social 
democracy", where the state is seen as the ultimate protector of the rights 
of social groupings within society against the unfettered action of the 
"free market". Personally, when faced with a choice between such things as 
"free trade" NAFTA and the "social Europe" European Union I know which 
version I would prefer every time.

I think one of the problems around the work of democratising ICANN has been 
the attitude of many US based lobbying groups. Much better financed than 
groups from the rest of the world, they have dominated proceedings and seem 
to believe they have a god given right to impose "American way" democracy 
on everyone else. How can such an imposition of a viewpoint on others be 
described as democracy at all? This has caused considerable resentment 
amongst ICANN participants from outside the US.

Let's take a rather extreme example of the underlying philosophy involved 
here. As we all know, the Markle Foundation has played a considerable role 
in funding democratic developments within ICANN. This same foundation is 
also very proud of its sponsorship of the "War on Terrorism" website ( 
http://www.terrorismanswers.com ) dedicated to justifying bombing the hell 
out of anyone not seen as accepting the US view of democracy. Markle, quite 
typically of probably most Americans, cannot see an inconsistency here. The 
majority of the rest of the world does.

ICANN does not exist in a vacuum, but in a world where very real resentment 
exists against US world domination. I share completely your concerns over 
possible multilateral government control over ICANN, but what is feeding 
the pressure for this is undoubtedly international concerns over this US 
domination. Arguing in favour of US domination as a way of preserving 
democracy will intensify these fears. Such arguments only play into the 
hands of governments outside the US, some of them certainly extremely 
undemocratic. They can then present themselves as opposing a US domination 
that is resented by most of their populations. So it is in the world as a 
whole, and this is being reflected in pressures around ICANN.

These pressures surfaced at a conference of the International 
Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Intellectual Property 
Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva in December (See article below). The origins 
of Lynn's proposals can be seen there.

I would suggest that a campaign against multilateral government control 
over ICANN, if it has any chance of succeeding, should be based on opposing 
it with a conception of democracy that strives to allow the voices of all 
Internet stakeholders to be heard, not just Americans claiming to speak on 
their behalf (lets face it, that is what happens at most ICANN meetings at 
present). Such an ideal form of international democracy may be a hell of a 
long way off, but, so far, the Internet has been the most powerful force 
towards enabling a vision of its possible realisation. That's the main 
reason why many of us want to defend the Internet against the attempts 
being made by governments to control it.

Chris Bailey
Internet Rights Europe

--------------------------------------------

11.12.01

EU plans ICANN study

In the coming year the EU Information Society Directorate-General plans a 
study concerning the work of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names 
and Numbers (ICANN). The tender will be published in the EU Official 
Journal in February, said Richard Delmas from the Information Society 
Directorate-Generate during a conference of the International 
Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Intellectual Property 
Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva.

Next year ICANN will have to make two crucial decisions: In March the 
organisation will decide on the final composition of its board, and it will 
be likely to start a new round of elections for some of the directors. 
There is a controversial debate on whether only domain name holders should 
be entitled to vote and how many directors should be elected directly by 
the users. If ICANN decides - as is expected - that only a part of the 
originally planned nine directors (of 19 in total) should be electronically 
elected, international governments would be likely to urge even more 
strongly that they should be heard as public representatives in the ICANN 
process.

Furthermore the organisation will have to take a stand on the further 
selection process of new top-level domains. ICANN president Stuart Lynn had 
said in an interview after the ICANN annual meeting that it is still 
completely open when this will take place.

The EU study is supposed to examine these aspects as well. It is scheduled 
at a time when in several countries annoyance about the US focus of the 
organisation is growing, and it can be considered a signal to the US 
government and ICANN. At the conference in Geneva, particularly 
representatives from Asia asked if it is necessary to change the present 
responsibility for the order of the domain name system.

"In my opinion, ICANN can solve this task best," told ICANN director 
Jonathan Cohen (heise online). It would be working continually on further 
improvements of its work. He said he doesn't know if the interest of the 
ITU in questions of the internationalisation of the DNS is an attempt to 
present itself as a possible alternative to ICANN.

(translated from German. Original at 
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/wst-11.12.01-000/ )