[NCUC-DISCUSS] [NCUC-EC] Replacement on Cross Community WorkingGroup on Internet Governance

Mon Apr 11 10:36:08 CEST 2016

Hi Milton,

I think almost everything you say below is correct. But in my eyes this does not lead to the conclusion to close the CCWG. My conclusion is that we have to re-boot it.

I agree that the CCWG did a bad job in the last two years. There was only little innovative outcome. The organized panels within ICANN meetings were with little audience, sometimes confusing or overpacked and more (burocratic and low quality)presentations than creative discussions. 

However to conclude we should close the CCWG (I was not a member and do not intend to join) would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The CCWG needs a re-booting after the completion of the IANA Stewardship Transition. ICANNs involvement in broader IG issues - as you have described below - is a cross constituency challenge. How you can develop ICANN "foreign policies" in an isolated way, leaving it to some activists from some SOs or ACs? 

During the two years of discussion around the IANA transition, the concept of a CCWG has emerged as a very robust and useful instrument to discuss and settle issues which are in the interests of all SOs and ACs. And this is here the case. Broader IG issues need a cross constituency discussion platform. I agree that the existing CCWG needs re-chartered and has to produce more tangible outcome (recommendations, advice etc). To close it would give the wrong signal and could have unintended side-effects, feeding "isolationalism".

I see this also from a more strategic point of view. When the IANA transition is completed we have to start a discussion about restructurung ICANN according to the new realities which emerged both inside and outside of ICANN in the 2010s. The existing ICANN structure goes back to 2002. As you remember I introduced in Buenos Aires the idea to start a discussion about a general restructuring of ICANN as soon as the transition is completed. I called it "Workstream 3" and "ICANN 2020" (probably it will need some years more and "ICANN 2025" is more realistic). We had a good first BOF in Marrakesh. My vision for a restructured ICANN would be a three layer model for the "empowered community": 
Layer 1: three SOs (as contracting parties)
Layer 2: four ACs (as stakeholder representative goups with individual constituencies)
Layer 3: issue based CCWGs (where needed) which can be created and closed according to the needs. 
In this concept a CCWG on IG could be developed into a platform where all SOs and ACs (and their constituencies) have a place to discuss how ICANN should design its "foreign policy". 

Again: My recommendaiton is NOT to close the CCWG but to reform (re-boot) it. 

Wolfgang

Wolfgang:
I think almost everything you say below is correct, but does not really bear on the question whether we need to continue the CCWG-IG. 

You are asking "how the involvement of ICANN in broader IG issues should be designed in the future." Do you really think this CCWG-IG has anything to say about that? 

Let me recount for you all the ways in which ICANN people and entities interact with the broader IG environment whether or not this CCWG exists:

1. ICANN's board and CEO can and probably will continue to send staff to WSIS-related meetings, civil society meetings such as Rightscon, EU and EC meetings, regional meetings of governments, cybersecurity seminars and conferences and intergovernmental meetings, etc. etc. This is a matter of board policy, not CCWG policy

2. ICANN constituencies and stakeholder groups will continue to attend meetings such as IGF, at the global, regional and local level, and many of these meetings will be focused broadly on IG and not narrowly. 

3. CROPP funding will continue to send ICANN participants to the farther reaches of the IG environment. The CCWG-IG does not provide or allocate CROPP funds. 

4. Blogs and news items about the broader environment (e.g., IGP blog, Circle ID, India's CCG and CIS, CDT) will be written by and/or read by ICANN people

5. Summer schools, such as the one you run in Meissen, and regional ones, will continue to situate ICANN in the broader context. 

Etc., etc. 

I was struck by Bill Drake's comments about the CCWG-IG - unlike you, he has labored in it for sometime, and if he is not all that enthusiastic about continuing it in its present form, it speaks volumes. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ncuc-discuss [mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf
> Of "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2016 11:33 AM
> To: William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com>; NCUC-discuss <ncuc-
> discuss at lists.ncuc.org>
> Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] [NCUC-EC] Replacement on Cross Community
> WorkingGroup on Internet Governance
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I did not participate in this CCWG. But when I was in the Board we had various
> discussions how the involvement of ICANN in broader IG issues should be
> designed in the future (in particular after the IANA transition). There are two
> schools of thought: One (the isolationsists) which argue that ICANN should
> more or less ignore what happens ourtside the I* world. The other group
> argues (and I was part of this group) that there is a need that ICANN remains
> involved in IGF, WGEC, WSIS (and even in Wuzhen, FII, NMI, GIGC, GCSC, GFCE
> etc.). Broader Internet Governance is and can not be ICANNs core business
> and there is a risk of mission creep. But ignorance and isolation can fire back
> and ICANN can find itself in an unfriendly environment which could make the
> daily operations of its core business more complicated if processes start in
> bodies (like UNCSTD or Wuzehn or The Hague) and Trigger develoopments in
> wrong directions. If ICANN is not present and can not raise the voice, this can
> happen. Sometimes such processes are difficult to stop. I called the needed
> ICANN involvement in broader IG issues as an investment into the protection
> of ICANNs environment. I do also not buy SDB´s argument that ICANNs
> engagement in the NetMundial was a mistake. Insofar I propose to continue
> with this CCWG. The ICANN Board needs good advice from the community
> and a CCWG approach is a good approach to trigger bottom up developments
> of reasonable positions.
> 
> Wolfgang
> 
> 
> 
>   etc.+ bve very<  s a
> 
> 
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Ncuc-discuss im Auftrag von William Drake
> Gesendet: So 10.04.2016 16:55
> An: NCUC-discuss
> Betreff: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] [NCUC-EC] Replacement on Cross Community
> WorkingGroup on Internet Governance
> 
> Hi
> 
> > On Apr 9, 2016, at 06:19, avri doria <avri at apc.org> wrote:
> >
> > +1
> >
> > On 08-Apr-16 18:34, Matthew Shears wrote:
> >> I am a firm believer that this CCWG should exist and it should do so
> >> for a very specific reason:
> 
> 
> There has been an on again off again conversation for about the past year
> about the future of the CCWIG.  As I wrote to the NCSG-PC list in February,
> 
> >> the CCW-IG was initially set up after the 2013 BA meeting to provide a
> written input to the NETmundial meeting.  Since then it has drifted with no
> ability to work on common texts of any kind (due to resistance from various
> biz actors we know), and indeed no ability to have a coherent discussion of
> this or other matters.  By default its sole activities have turned into a) pressing
> Nigel and Tarek to explain what they say in intergovernmental settings; and b)
> planning the public IG sessions, which have turned into MAG-like escapades
> with agenda control games (one guess who) being played out on weekly
> phone calls typically involving less than a dozen people.
> >>
> >> As the NCSG 'participant' on the CCWIG I'm inclined to think it should be
> wound down, or turned into a working party.  If people interested in the
> broader IG landscape want a place to talk about its relevance to ICANN,
> interface with staff who rep ICANN in intergovernmental spaces, and monkey
> around micromanaging the public IG session, fine, by why does it need to be a
> chartered CCWG with all the constraints that implies?  If it was a coalition of
> the willing, the group might actually able to say or do something, as the HR
> group has.
> 
> I couldn't attend the F2F meeting of the group in Marrakech
> https://meetings.icann.org/en/marrakech55/schedule/wed-ccwg-ig  as the
> NomCom had a meeting at the same time.  But I'm told this was discussed a
> bit, and that the people in attendance decided that it should remain a CCWG,
> an organizational form that is apparently uniquely well suited to the two
> activities mentioned above.  So that's where things rest at the moment.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Bill
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