Brazil's official position on the "Affirmation of Commitments"

[Milton L Mueller]

There are some wise things in the Brazilian statement.

> Among the positive aspects included in the new agreement, it is worth
> highlighting the following:
> 
> (1) increasing participation of other governments in the process of
> assessing and reviewing ICANN activities, with a greater role for the
> Government Advisory Committee (GAC), along with the ICANN Board;

It is interesting that the Brazilian government does not "see through" the problem of the GAC, but believes that it is a legitimate form of intergovernmental oversight. 

As I have argued, the GAC in some ways gives us the worst of both worlds: it puts governments in their own silo and gives them an intrusive role (and they have shown no inclination to protect the public interest but only to assert their own power over Internet resources, from fast-track IDN TLDs to geographic names). 

At the same time this governmental influence is devoid of any law, treaties or standard rules of procedure as exists in democratic societies - no freedom of information act, no legislative or democratic ratification of their agreements and decisions, no election of GAC officials, no constitutional restraints on interference with freedom of expression, etc. 

I also have trouble understanding why people see yet another review committee, drawn in a completely discretionary way from the pool of people and interest groups already active in ICANN, as some improvement in accountability. All I see is another energy-draining lobbying cycle posing the risk of arbitrary behavior. Here is a scenario to consider:

Let's suppose that (somehow) NCUC is successful in winning some great policy victory in ICANN. For the sake of argument, let's say that it pertains to free expression - suppose that we convinced the GNSO that it should not adopt the new gTLD policies that imposed "morality and public order" restraints and we succeeded also in knocking out some policy that would give governments a veto over new TLD proposals. Now suppose that this victory angers some interest group (a lot of GAC members, for example). 

So now it is "review" time. The angry GAC members convince the GAC chair that this policy decision was very troublesome and a sign of ICANN's lack of accountability or whatever. The GAC chair agrees, perhaps, and chooses people for the review committee who go into the review with an axe to grind. 

So we have to spend more time lobbying and fighting to make sure the review committee is not biased, and keeping track of who gets put on it, and devoting resources to the review - to defend a legal and legitimate decision that was already made. This is not "accountability" this is running around in circles.