[NCUC-DISCUSS] Increasing GAC influence?

Wed Aug 20 15:35:58 CEST 2014

Hi,

Thanks for posting the comment, Milton. Speaking for myself, I am in complete agreement with it.

GNSO Working Groups go through a pretty exhaustive process to come up with policy recommendations, send them to the GNSO Council to be approved and forwarded to the ICANN board. GAC members are more than welcome to participate on equal footing with other stakeholders in these WGs, they are more than welcome to provide feedback at multiple stages during the public comment periods of this process including the scoping of the policies being discussed (twice when staff publish issue reports and when a PDP charter drafting team comes up with a charter), provide input during the WG deliberations, and feedback on recommendations that have gained consensus by the WG members.

Undermining the GNSO’s PDP by empowering a parallel policy development mechanism is a hazard to how gTLD policy is developed at ICANN. It’s difficult enough to attract volunteers to participate in WGs. Increasing GAC influence on the outcome of this process will only demoralise participants further. This suggested amendment to the by-laws is also very conflicted with the efforts underway between the GNSO and the GAC to encourage early engagement in the GNSO process (as opposed to only resorting to GAC Advice).

I personally don’t see the point in folks participating in WGs that sometimes take more than a year to reach consensus if this work will have to contend with GAC Advice when all is said and done.

I do, however, agree with Avri; that Geist exaggerates the danger. Still…, there is a danger.

Thanks.

Amr

On Aug 19, 2014, at 8:20 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> 
> You're right, Kathy. 
> Please NCSG members, don't be swayed by Avri's cynical mood. 
> 
> Hree is the public comment I wrote for this:
> 
> all stakeholders are equal...but some stakeholders are more equal than others
> 
> It's impossible not to think of Orwell's famous phrase from Animal Farm when reading this proposal.
> 
> This bylaw change gives GAC precisely the wrong kinds of incentives. The ATRT recommendations (and virtually everyone else familiar with ICANN's process and aware of the dysfunctional relationship between GAC's shadow-policy making process and the real bottom up process) have been urging GAC to get more involved with and integrated into the policy development process. But this resolution pushes them in the opposite direction. It tells GAC that they don't have to consult or integrate their policy ideas with any other stakeholder groups. Their pronouncements will be given a special status regardless of how little make an effort to listen to and reach agreement with other groups. As this happens, other stakeholders will learn that the real place to influence policy is to lobby the GAC. The GNSO's policy development process in particular will atrophy. 
> 
> By proposing this ill-advised change, ICANN is corroding multistakeholder governance at its very foundations.  If this passes, ICANN can stop presenting itself as an alternative to Internet governance via governmental and inter-governmental processes. It will have privileged governments to such a degree that virtually any arbitrary, untimely, ill-considered pronouncement that makes its way through the GAC will take on the status of a global rule for the Internet's DNS unless 2/3 of ICANN's generally spineless board can be mobilized to stop it. 
> 
> What we are seeing here is, as some of us predicted, the long-term transformation of GAC into an intergovernmental organization with control over the internet. The problem is that the GAC is _worse_ than ITU because it has none of the procedural safeguards and limitations on its authority (such as the right of a state not to ratify a treaty) that governments have.
> 
> Milton L Mueller
> Laura J and L. Douglas Meredith Professor 
> Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/ 
> 
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org [mailto:ncuc-discuss-
>> bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf Of Kathy Kleiman
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2014 8:24 AM
>> To: ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
>> Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Increasing GAC influence?
>> 
>> Hi All,
>> I think it may make GAC much more powerful -- essentially a veto over the
>> GNSO process (and the other supporting organizations as well).
>> Michael Geist's article on this is good --
>> http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/08/government-control-internet-
>> governance-icann-proposes-giving-gac-increased-power-board-decisions/
>> 
>> I think we should think hard about opposing...
>> Best,
>> Kathy
>> 
>> 
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> What it essentially does is put GAC on an equal footing with GNSO,
>>> ccNSO and maybe ASO.
>>> 
>>> avri
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 18-Aug-14 22:50, William Drake wrote:
>>>> Hi
>>>> 
>>>> Well this is interesting.  ICANN's proposing a bylaws change that
>>>> would would require 2/3 of the voting members of the Board to vote to
>>>> act inconsistently with a piece of GAC advice.  Currently, the Bylaws
>>>> require a simple majority of the Board.
>>>> https://www.icann.org/public-comments/bylaws-amend-gac-advice-
>> 2014-08
>>>> -15-en
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> The public comment forum is here
>>>> http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-bylaws-amend-gac-advice-
>> 15aug14
>>>> /
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> Might be good for people to weigh in, individually and/or collectively.
>>>> Michael Geist offers an initial take on this,
>>>> http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/08/government-control-internet-
>> govern
>>>> ance-icann-proposes-giving-gac-increased-power-board-decisions/
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> Bill _______________________________________________ Ncuc-
>> discuss
>>>> mailing list Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
>>>> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>>>> 
>>>> 
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