Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: - *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. - *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. - *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). - *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. - *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive *InternetNZ* +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz *A better world through a better Internet *
-1 "We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability." The Obama administration and the NTIA provided nothing, they are following the process where the original proposal was by Bill Clinton as ordered by his wealthly political donors to transition internet responsibilities to a globalized process, which i agree was a good idea, only IF an external whistleblower protection process is implemented to discourage intimidation by bad actors on that post-transition global stage, lets talk about that some other day though as agreed upon. Don"t ever be grateful to a Federal government if it is owned by billionaire donors, because the. by default you are grateful to billionaires, who are buying the government knowing full well the negative influence their miney has on democracy, which is dishonest and immoral, so therefore don't be grateful to those whom are dishonest and immoral via some suggestion of pretend gratefulness to a bought and paid for puppet oligarchy. Ron
Jordan, Don’t apologize. Instead, just accept our gratitude for the effort and integrity you have contributed to this process for nearly a year. Your blog post is both sobering and inspiring. Our task remains, as you say: The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org>> on behalf of Jordan Carter Date: Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:19 PM To: Accountability Cross Community Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet
+1 Bravo! Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/Cell Twitter: @VLawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey Sent from my iPad On Oct 8, 2015, at 8:47 PM, Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@netchoice.org<mailto:sdelbianco@netchoice.org>> wrote: Jordan, Don’t apologize. Instead, just accept our gratitude for the effort and integrity you have contributed to this process for nearly a year. Your blog post is both sobering and inspiring. Our task remains, as you say: The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org>> on behalf of Jordan Carter Date: Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:19 PM To: Accountability Cross Community Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Great stuff From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Phil Corwin Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 9:40 PM To: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@netchoice.org> Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin +1 Bravo! Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/Cell Twitter: @VLawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey Sent from my iPad On Oct 8, 2015, at 8:47 PM, Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@netchoice.org<mailto:sdelbianco@netchoice.org>> wrote: Jordan, Don't apologize. Instead, just accept our gratitude for the effort and integrity you have contributed to this process for nearly a year. Your blog post is both sobering and inspiring. Our task remains, as you say: The "what" is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN's open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can - can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN's favour. From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org>> on behalf of Jordan Carter Date: Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:19 PM To: Accountability Cross Community Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You've probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project - sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN's accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I've been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn't expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN's resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group's work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we'd had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn't responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box - all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert "red lines" into part of the debate - on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn't only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn't need, it is delaying the group's ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you'd thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes - many would have stared at you and laughed. If you'd suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue - not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there's any doubt in your mind about why we need change - review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We're all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it - proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN's culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG's proposal and the ICANN Board's counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the "how" - it is the "what," the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The "what" is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN's open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can - can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN's favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters - NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn't an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn't going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal - no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal - no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there's a will there's a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, "not easy, not optional." -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
+1. Well said - and much appreciated. On Oct 8, 2015, at 5:45 PM, Steve DelBianco wrote:
Jordan, Don’t apologize. Instead, just accept our gratitude for the effort and integrity you have contributed to this process for nearly a year. Your blog post is both sobering and inspiring. Our task remains, as you say:
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Jordan Carter Date: Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:19 PM To: Accountability Cross Community Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf .docx
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz
A better world through a better Internet
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
+ 1 On 08/10/2015 23:10, Robin Gross wrote:
+1. Well said - and much appreciated.
On Oct 8, 2015, at 5:45 PM, Steve DelBianco wrote:
Jordan, Don’t apologize. Instead, just accept our gratitude for the effort and integrity you have contributed to this process for nearly a year. Your blog post is both sobering and inspiring. Our task remains, as you say:
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org>> on behalf of Jordan Carter Date: Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:19 PM To: Accountability Cross Community Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan
ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive *InternetNZ*
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz/>
/A better world through a better Internet /
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
-- Matthew Shears Director - Global Internet Policy and Human Rights Center for Democracy & Technology mshears@cdt.org + 44 771 247 2987 --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig <mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> Link to my PGP Key From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> .docx I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...> here). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet
Thanks Paul. I think this explains why the CCWG was so shocked by the initial call with the Board. There was also a Board resolution to this effect – maybe it was in Singapore? Anne [cid:image001.gif@01D1028D.A6DD4BA0] Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com<http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Paul Rosenzweig Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:00 PM To: 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative. From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony. Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key<http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.
It was “ICANN 52 Board Statement on ICANN Sending IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability Proposals to NTIA” (Feb. 12, 2015), available at: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-32015-02-12-en And this is actually what Larry was citing in his testimony. From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Aikman-Scalese, Anne Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 3:26 PM To: 'Paul Rosenzweig'; 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Thanks Paul. I think this explains why the CCWG was so shocked by the initial call with the Board. There was also a Board resolution to this effect – maybe it was in Singapore? Anne [cid:image001.gif@01D102A8.FA610A80] Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com<http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Paul Rosenzweig Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:00 PM To: 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative. From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony. Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key<http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.
Thanks Mike. I got a 404 error on that link Anne [cid:image001.gif@01D10295.6BC54C90] Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com<http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: Chartier, Mike S [mailto:mike.s.chartier@intel.com] Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:42 PM To: Aikman-Scalese, Anne; 'Paul Rosenzweig'; 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: RE: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin It was “ICANN 52 Board Statement on ICANN Sending IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability Proposals to NTIA” (Feb. 12, 2015), available at: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-32015-02-12-en And this is actually what Larry was citing in his testimony. From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Aikman-Scalese, Anne Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 3:26 PM To: 'Paul Rosenzweig'; 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Thanks Paul. I think this explains why the CCWG was so shocked by the initial call with the Board. There was also a Board resolution to this effect – maybe it was in Singapore? Anne [cid:image001.gif@01D10295.6BC54C90] Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com<http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Paul Rosenzweig Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:00 PM To: 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative. From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony. Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key<http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521. ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.
Here is the link: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-3-2015-02-12-en That one works for me. So … Jordan, you can add that to the chronology. And since there are members of the Board on this a question: Did the Board ever formally rescind this statement? When? May we see the minutes of that decision please? Paul Paul Rosenzweig <mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> Link to my PGP Key From: Aikman-Scalese, Anne [mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com] Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 4:22 PM To: 'Chartier, Mike S' <mike.s.chartier@intel.com>; 'Paul Rosenzweig' <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>; 'Jordan Carter' <jordan@internetnz.net.nz>; 'Accountability Cross Community' <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> Subject: RE: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Thanks Mike. I got a 404 error on that link Anne Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com <mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com <http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: Chartier, Mike S [mailto:mike.s.chartier@intel.com] Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:42 PM To: Aikman-Scalese, Anne; 'Paul Rosenzweig'; 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: RE: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin It was “ICANN 52 Board Statement on ICANN Sending IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability Proposals to NTIA” (Feb. 12, 2015), available at: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-32015-02-12-en And this is actually what Larry was citing in his testimony. From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Aikman-Scalese, Anne Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 3:26 PM To: 'Paul Rosenzweig'; 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Thanks Paul. I think this explains why the CCWG was so shocked by the initial call with the Board. There was also a Board resolution to this effect – maybe it was in Singapore? Anne Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com <mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com <http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Paul Rosenzweig Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:00 PM To: 'Jordan Carter'; 'Accountability Cross Community' Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig <mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> Link to my PGP Key From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org> > Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> .docx I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...> here). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _____ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521. _____ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.
I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss. Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
Jordan
This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make –
First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/....
Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.”
I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand.
Cheers Paul
Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key
From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf .docx
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz
A better world through a better Internet
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Kavouss, I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks. Ron
Sorry, I did not speak for anyone . I just expressed my thanks to Jordan and few others. I therefore do not understand your comment . I did not comment on chronology Of events?????!!!!! Ksvouss Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
From: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>; Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 7:54:03 PM
I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss.
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
+1 I agree with Kavouss I don’t know where that hostility came from. Jordan did a fantastic job in producing the chronology and has done a fantastic job throughout the CCWG. He most certainly deserves to be applauded for his work and dedication to this. -jg From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org>> on behalf of Kavouss Arasteh Date: Friday 9 October 2015 at 9:49 p.m. To: Ron Baione Cc: "accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>" Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sorry, I did not speak for anyone . I just expressed my thanks to Jordan and few others. I therefore do not understand your comment . I did not comment on chronology Of events?????!!!!! Ksvouss Sent from my iPhone On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com<mailto:ron.baione@yahoo.com>> wrote: Kavouss, I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks. Ron ________________________________ From: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com<mailto:kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>>; To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>>; Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 7:54:03 PM I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss. Sent from my iPhone On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<javascript:return>> wrote:
James, can I speak for you? No, because you would probably object to it. Its not "hostility" if you asked me not to speak for you, and I suspect the reason you stated that is because you are actually hostile towards me because of my previous comments. Ron
I still do not understand what are you talking about I never said you are hostile with me as you mentioned . It is misunderstanding and for that pls accept my apology if it was as you mentioned.Once again I just thanked Jordan and his colleagues Good night Kavouss Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 23:06, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
James, can I speak for you? No, because you would probably object to it. Its not "hostility" if you asked me not to speak for you, and I suspect the reason you stated that is because you are actually hostile towards me because of my previous comments.
Ron
From: James Gannon <james@cyberinvasion.net>; To: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com>; Cc: accountability-cross-community@icann.org <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 8:53:21 PM
+1 I agree with Kavouss I don’t know where that hostility came from. Jordan did a fantastic job in producing the chronology and has done a fantastic job throughout the CCWG. He most certainly deserves to be applauded for his work and dedication to this.
-jg
From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Kavouss Arasteh Date: Friday 9 October 2015 at 9:49 p.m. To: Ron Baione Cc: "accountability-cross-community@icann.org" Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Sorry, I did not speak for anyone . I just expressed my thanks to Jordan and few others. I therefore do not understand your comment . I did not comment on chronology Of events?????!!!!! Ksvouss
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
From: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>; Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 7:54:03 PM
I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss.
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
The hostility comment has nothing to do with you. I asked that you don't say "we owe" because that includes me when you say "we", not hostile at all just a simple request. Ron
+100 to that "There is nothing more difficult to arrange and more dangerous to carry through than initiating change..." Machiavelli Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 21:53, James Gannon <james@cyberinvasion.net> wrote:
+1 I agree with Kavouss I don’t know where that hostility came from. Jordan did a fantastic job in producing the chronology and has done a fantastic job throughout the CCWG. He most certainly deserves to be applauded for his work and dedication to this.
-jg
From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Kavouss Arasteh Date: Friday 9 October 2015 at 9:49 p.m. To: Ron Baione Cc: "accountability-cross-community@icann.org" Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Sorry, I did not speak for anyone . I just expressed my thanks to Jordan and few others. I therefore do not understand your comment . I did not comment on chronology Of events?????!!!!! Ksvouss
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
From: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>; Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 7:54:03 PM
I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss.
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
God bless that conservative person Kavouss Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 23:11, Beran Dondeh <berandondeh@yahoo.com> wrote:
+100 to that
"There is nothing more difficult to arrange and more dangerous to carry through than initiating change..." Machiavelli
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 21:53, James Gannon <james@cyberinvasion.net> wrote:
+1 I agree with Kavouss I don’t know where that hostility came from. Jordan did a fantastic job in producing the chronology and has done a fantastic job throughout the CCWG. He most certainly deserves to be applauded for his work and dedication to this.
-jg
From: <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Kavouss Arasteh Date: Friday 9 October 2015 at 9:49 p.m. To: Ron Baione Cc: "accountability-cross-community@icann.org" Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Sorry, I did not speak for anyone . I just expressed my thanks to Jordan and few others. I therefore do not understand your comment . I did not comment on chronology Of events?????!!!!! Ksvouss
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
From: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>; Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 7:54:03 PM
I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss.
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
The United States Oligarchy includes a lot big time American companies buying puppet politicians since the Buckley v Valeo decision, and then the Citizens United decision, turning th United States into the Oligarchy joke that it is today, have any thoughts on that James? Ron
Huh… -jg From: Ron Baione Date: Friday 9 October 2015 at 10:25 p.m. To: Beran Dondeh, James Gannon Cc: "kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com<mailto:kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>", "accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>" Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin The United States Oligarchy includes a lot big time American companies buying puppet politicians since the Buckley v Valeo decision, and then the Citizens United decision, turning th United States into the Oligarchy joke that it is today, have any thoughts on that James? Ron ________________________________ From: Beran Dondeh <berandondeh@yahoo.com<mailto:berandondeh@yahoo.com>>; To: James Gannon <james@cyberinvasion.net<mailto:james@cyberinvasion.net>>; Cc: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com<mailto:kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>>; Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com<mailto:ron.baione@yahoo.com>>; accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org> <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 9:11:34 PM +100 to that "There is nothing more difficult to arrange and more dangerous to carry through than initiating change..." Machiavelli Sent from my iPhone On 9 Oct 2015, at 21:53, James Gannon <james@cyberinvasion.net<javascript:return>> wrote:
I was trying to discern where your hostility was coming from, James. Previously I postulated that it was because of my previous comments, but you seem not to be able to respond, by replying, "huh", so i'll leave it as an open question to you. Ron
Ron Thank you again I never allowed myself to speak for anyone at all. Sometime at the end of a meeting I say, i express my thanks to .,, and, if others agree . Also we thank. I do not think thanking people is a wring thing Good night Kavouss Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
From: Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; To: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>; Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Sent: Fri, Oct 9, 2015 7:54:03 PM
I wholeheartedly join colleagues in congratulating you Dear Jordan as well as all those who assisted you in this very tireless and invaluable efforts made, We all owe you a big round of applause Kavouss.
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 20:59, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
Dear Mr Arastheh, My advice would be, don't feed the troll... el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 9 Oct 2015, at 23:33, Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com> wrote:
Ron Thank you again I never allowed myself to speak for anyone at all. Sometime at the end of a meeting I say, i express my thanks to .,, and, if others agree . Also we thank. I do not think thanking people is a wring thing Good night Kavouss
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
Dear Dr. Thanks fir your advice which is valid as usual Ka Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 23:37, Dr Eberhard W Lisse <el@lisse.na> wrote:
Dear Mr Arastheh,
My advice would be, don't feed the troll...
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 9 Oct 2015, at 23:33, Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com> wrote:
Ron Thank you again I never allowed myself to speak for anyone at all. Sometime at the end of a meeting I say, i express my thanks to .,, and, if others agree . Also we thank. I do not think thanking people is a wring thing Good night Kavouss
Sent from my iPhone
On 9 Oct 2015, at 22:11, Ron Baione <ron.baione@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kavouss,
I agree that the chronology is very useful, don't speak for me though, thanks.
Ron
That advice was invalid. Ron
Dr. Eberhard, i'm not a troll, and I'd like the community to make note of that direct insult. Ron
I think it was an indirect insult, actually. (Which in no way affects its efficacy.) On 09/10/15 22:56, Ron Baione wrote:
Dr. Eberhard, i'm not a troll, and I'd like the community to make note of that direct insult.
Ron
------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From: * Dr Eberhard W Lisse <el@lisse.na>; *To: * Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com>; *Cc: * Lisse Eberhard <directors@omadhina.NET>; accountability-cross-community@icann.org <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; *Subject: * Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin *Sent: * Fri, Oct 9, 2015 9:37:51 PM
Dear Mr Arastheh,
My advice would be, don't feed the troll...
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 9 Oct 2015, at 23:33, Kavouss Arasteh <kavouss.arasteh@gmail.com <javascript:return>> wrote:
Nigel, and yet you are feeding him. but he's probably Jefsey anyway, so no harm done. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 10 Oct 2015, at 09:42, Nigel Roberts <nigel@channelisles.net> wrote:
I think it was an indirect insult, actually. (Which in no way affects its efficacy.)
On 09/10/15 22:56, Ron Baione wrote: Dr. Eberhard, i'm not a troll, and I'd like the community to make note of that direct insult.
Ron
Dr. Eberhard, that is the second time you have directly insulted me, please refrain from directly insulting me. Thank you, and please let the community take note that Dr. Eberhard referred to me as "a Jefsey", which appears to be a made up word as there is no definition for that word provided that I could find. Could be a slang term. Ron
Eberhard Now it it appears is you that is providing silicon-based life forms with sustenance. I shall desist if you do. On 10/10/15 11:22, Ron Baione wrote:
Dr. Eberhard, that is the second time you have directly insulted me, please refrain from directly insulting me. Thank you, and please let the community take note that Dr. Eberhard referred to me as "a Jefsey", which appears to be a made up word as there is no definition for that word provided that I could find. Could be a slang term.
Ron
------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From: * Dr Eberhard W Lisse <el@lisse.na>; *To: * CCWG Accountability <accountability-cross-community@icann.org>; *Cc: * Lisse Eberhard <directors@omadhina.NET>; *Subject: * Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin *Sent: * Sat, Oct 10, 2015 7:49:23 AM
Nigel,
and yet you are feeding him.
but he's probably Jefsey anyway, so no harm done.
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 10 Oct 2015, at 09:42, Nigel Roberts <nigel@channelisles.net <javascript:return>> wrote:
I think it was an indirect insult, actually. (Which in no way affects its efficacy.)
On 09/10/15 22:56, Ron Baione wrote: Dr. Eberhard, i'm not a troll, and I'd like the community to make note of that direct insult.
Ron
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <javascript:return> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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Nigel, please refrain from referring to me as a "silicone based lifeform", thank you. Ron
An indirect insult sounds like, "Don't feed a troll", a direct insult sounds like, "Don't feed the troll", which is what was said. If there are two people standing at a table,and there is an orange on the table, and one person says to the other, "Don't eat a peach", that is an incorrect, indirect reference to the orange on the table, but if the person says, "Don't eat the peach", that is an incorrect, direct reference to the orange on the table. I am the orange on the table in that analogy, and I was incorrectly, directly referenced as a peach by someone who had nothing to do with the conversation. Ron
True, "We thank" is fine if you are talking about the group of people in agreement for thanking, I agree, "we all owe you a round of applause" includes me though. I never said anything about "we thank". Ron
I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current events fit under the following part of his statement: if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Greg (speaking only for myself) On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig < paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:
Jordan
This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make –
First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/... .
Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story:
According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.”
I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand.
Cheers
Paul
Paul Rosenzweig
paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com <paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com>
O: +1 (202) 547-0660
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VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739
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Link to my PGP Key <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...>
*From:* Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] *Sent:* Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM *To:* Accountability Cross Community < accountability-cross-community@icann.org> *Subject:* [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers
Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
- *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. - *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. - *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
- *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. - *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
--
Jordan Carter
Chief Executive *InternetNZ*
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter
Web: www.internetnz.nz
*A better world through a better Internet *
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
So if the statement is accurate, did they rescind the Resolution of 10/16/14? On Oct 9, 2015, at 5:46 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc@gmail.com<mailto:gregshatanipc@gmail.com>> wrote: I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current events fit under the following part of his statement: if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Greg (speaking only for myself) On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>> wrote: Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20547-0660> M: +1 (202) 329-9650<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20329-9650> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20738-1739> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key<http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz>] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118<tel:%2B64-4-495-2118> (office) | +64-21-442-649<tel:%2B64-21-442-649> (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
2015-10-09 23:59 GMT+02:00 Chartier, Mike S <mike.s.chartier@intel.com>:
So if the statement is accurate, did they rescind the Resolution of 10/16/14?
On Oct 9, 2015, at 5:46 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc@gmail.com<mailto: gregshatanipc@gmail.com>> wrote:
I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current events fit under the following part of his statement:
if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community.
Greg (speaking only for myself)
On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig < paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto: paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>> wrote: Jordan
This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make –
First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/... .
Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.”
I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand.
Cheers Paul
Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto: paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20547-0660> M: +1 (202) 329-9650<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20329-9650> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20738-1739> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key< http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...
From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto: jordan@internetnz.net.nz>] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community < accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto: accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf< https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf
.docx< https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here< http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118<tel:%2B64-4-495-2118> (office) | +64-21-442-649<tel:%2B64-21-442-649> (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz>
A better world through a better Internet
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto: Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto: Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
I’m not sure the current stance of the Board, i.e. “This transition won’t happen unless you drop the Sole Member and the Sole Designator approach” can be characterized as “participation” with the community. I think the Board has said, “We reject the CCWG Proposal as it relates to the mechanism of enforceability of the Accountability measures.” Leon has also pointed out, once again, that enforceability under the MEM proposal involves either individuals taking action to enforce (not fair) or deciding “after the fact” that the MEM Issues Group will form an unincorporated association for the purpose of enforcement after an objectionable action by the Board or a director. In the latter case, according to CCWG counsel, the unincorporated association may not have standing since the unincorporated association would not have existed at the time the objectionable Board or director action occurred. This is why Sidley/Adler keep explaining to us that the powers specified by the CWG-Stewardship Final Report are simply not assured of being enforceable under the MEM model. This is not rocket science. Attention from this reality of practical unenforceability in the MEM model has been deflected by the Board’s focus on asking Jones Day to opine on the subject of binding arbitration orders being enforceable in court. Again, you have to commence and complete binding arbitration before you can enforce the order in court. If you make individuals initiate the action, it’s way too much political pressure and individual risk. If you require them to form an unincorporated association to enforce after the fact, then they likely don’t have standing to arbitrate because the unincorporated association did not exist at the time the objectionable action occurred . So in fact, you have a huge deterrent and “chilling effect” against ever being able to commence an arbitration proceeding, especially since under the MEM model, that requires FULL consensus, i.e. unanimous vote for all types of community enforcement. Sidley/ Adler have made it clear that the Board’s concerns about Community Enforcement Action “running wild” can be addressed through the establishment of thresholds and that these can vary in relation to the action sought to be taken, e.g. whether it’s budget, operating plan, strategic plan, and or removal of directors. I assume these can also vary according to how many SOs and ACs are participating in the sole member for the purpose of achieving some level of consensus as to any particular community power. In the single member model, the Community gets to take action and then the Board can object to that action and have that examined. The threshold for taking action can be different in each area. For example, you could require unanimity to dump the whole Board. It seems to me the VERY SIGNIFICANT difference is timing and that this is a very significant aspect of enforceability. By way of example, if you establish a unanimous threshold for dumping the whole Board, then in the single member model, if the single member votes unanimously to dump the whole Board, it happens and new Board members get appointed and then the Board follows the objection procedures. In the MEM model, if the Community wants to dump the whole Board, individual SO/AC leaders are forced to individually file an arbitration proceeding, then the opposing parties argue over who the best arbitrators will be, then everyone disagrees and also finds that the arbitrators they want are not available for months. The dispute drags on forever. The Board remains as it was (unremoved) and the Community suffers through the arbitration the same way we suffered through the .africa IRP. The Board apparently takes the view that the MEM constitutes adequate enforcement in light of the CWG-Stewardship requirements. I do not really see it. As to why the Board cannot see its way clear to participating with the Community to establish reasonable restrictions on the powers of a Single Member, that strikes me as stubbornness. The notion that the multistakeholder community is not sufficiently accountable is simply not credible given that the Board has been endorsing policy made by this very community for years, not only Consensus Policy a to Contracted Parties, but the entire range of policies adopted in the new gTLD program. No one on the Board said, “It would be dangerous and destabilizing if we were to authorize the launch of a thousand new gTLDs because the Community is not sufficiently represented in the policy-making process and the SOs and ACs aren’t accountable.” Anne [cid:image001.gif@01D102B1.9513E130] Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com<http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Greg Shatan Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 2:46 PM To: Paul Rosenzweig Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current events fit under the following part of his statement: if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Greg (speaking only for myself) On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>> wrote: Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative. From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony. Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20547-0660> M: +1 (202) 329-9650<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20329-9650> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20738-1739> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key<http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz>] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118<tel:%2B64-4-495-2118> (office) | +64-21-442-649<tel:%2B64-21-442-649> (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.
+1 On Oct 9, 2015, at 8:09 PM, Aikman-Scalese, Anne <AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com>> wrote: I’m not sure the current stance of the Board, i.e. “This transition won’t happen unless you drop the Sole Member and the Sole Designator approach” can be characterized as “participation” with the community. I think the Board has said, “We reject the CCWG Proposal as it relates to the mechanism of enforceability of the Accountability measures.” Leon has also pointed out, once again, that enforceability under the MEM proposal involves either individuals taking action to enforce (not fair) or deciding “after the fact” that the MEM Issues Group will form an unincorporated association for the purpose of enforcement after an objectionable action by the Board or a director. In the latter case, according to CCWG counsel, the unincorporated association may not have standing since the unincorporated association would not have existed at the time the objectionable Board or director action occurred. This is why Sidley/Adler keep explaining to us that the powers specified by the CWG-Stewardship Final Report are simply not assured of being enforceable under the MEM model. This is not rocket science. Attention from this reality of practical unenforceability in the MEM model has been deflected by the Board’s focus on asking Jones Day to opine on the subject of binding arbitration orders being enforceable in court. Again, you have to commence and complete binding arbitration before you can enforce the order in court. If you make individuals initiate the action, it’s way too much political pressure and individual risk. If you require them to form an unincorporated association to enforce after the fact, then they likely don’t have standing to arbitrate because the unincorporated association did not exist at the time the objectionable action occurred . So in fact, you have a huge deterrent and “chilling effect” against ever being able to commence an arbitration proceeding, especially since under the MEM model, that requires FULL consensus, i.e. unanimous vote for all types of community enforcement. Sidley/ Adler have made it clear that the Board’s concerns about Community Enforcement Action “running wild” can be addressed through the establishment of thresholds and that these can vary in relation to the action sought to be taken, e.g. whether it’s budget, operating plan, strategic plan, and or removal of directors. I assume these can also vary according to how many SOs and ACs are participating in the sole member for the purpose of achieving some level of consensus as to any particular community power. In the single member model, the Community gets to take action and then the Board can object to that action and have that examined. The threshold for taking action can be different in each area. For example, you could require unanimity to dump the whole Board. It seems to me the VERY SIGNIFICANT difference is timing and that this is a very significant aspect of enforceability. By way of example, if you establish a unanimous threshold for dumping the whole Board, then in the single member model, if the single member votes unanimously to dump the whole Board, it happens and new Board members get appointed and then the Board follows the objection procedures. In the MEM model, if the Community wants to dump the whole Board, individual SO/AC leaders are forced to individually file an arbitration proceeding, then the opposing parties argue over who the best arbitrators will be, then everyone disagrees and also finds that the arbitrators they want are not available for months. The dispute drags on forever. The Board remains as it was (unremoved) and the Community suffers through the arbitration the same way we suffered through the .africa IRP. The Board apparently takes the view that the MEM constitutes adequate enforcement in light of the CWG-Stewardship requirements. I do not really see it. As to why the Board cannot see its way clear to participating with the Community to establish reasonable restrictions on the powers of a Single Member, that strikes me as stubbornness. The notion that the multistakeholder community is not sufficiently accountable is simply not credible given that the Board has been endorsing policy made by this very community for years, not only Consensus Policy a to Contracted Parties, but the entire range of policies adopted in the new gTLD program. No one on the Board said, “It would be dangerous and destabilizing if we were to authorize the launch of a thousand new gTLDs because the Community is not sufficiently represented in the policy-making process and the SOs and ACs aren’t accountable.” Anne <image001.gif> Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com<mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com<http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Greg Shatan Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 2:46 PM To: Paul Rosenzweig Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current events fit under the following part of his statement: if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Greg (speaking only for myself) On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com>> wrote: Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> O: +1 (202) 547-0660<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20547-0660> M: +1 (202) 329-9650<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20329-9650> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739<tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20738-1739> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 Link to my PGP Key<http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz>] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org>> Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118<tel:%2B64-4-495-2118> (office) | +64-21-442-649<tel:%2B64-21-442-649> (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521. _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
+1 or more! Paul Rosenzweig <mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com O: +1 (202) 547-0660 M: +1 (202) 329-9650 VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> Link to my PGP Key From: Aikman-Scalese, Anne [mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com] Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 8:09 PM To: 'Greg Shatan' <gregshatanipc@gmail.com>; Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> Cc: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> Subject: RE: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin I’m not sure the current stance of the Board, i.e. “This transition won’t happen unless you drop the Sole Member and the Sole Designator approach” can be characterized as “participation” with the community. I think the Board has said, “We reject the CCWG Proposal as it relates to the mechanism of enforceability of the Accountability measures.” Leon has also pointed out, once again, that enforceability under the MEM proposal involves either individuals taking action to enforce (not fair) or deciding “after the fact” that the MEM Issues Group will form an unincorporated association for the purpose of enforcement after an objectionable action by the Board or a director. In the latter case, according to CCWG counsel, the unincorporated association may not have standing since the unincorporated association would not have existed at the time the objectionable Board or director action occurred. This is why Sidley/Adler keep explaining to us that the powers specified by the CWG-Stewardship Final Report are simply not assured of being enforceable under the MEM model. This is not rocket science. Attention from this reality of practical unenforceability in the MEM model has been deflected by the Board’s focus on asking Jones Day to opine on the subject of binding arbitration orders being enforceable in court. Again, you have to commence and complete binding arbitration before you can enforce the order in court. If you make individuals initiate the action, it’s way too much political pressure and individual risk. If you require them to form an unincorporated association to enforce after the fact, then they likely don’t have standing to arbitrate because the unincorporated association did not exist at the time the objectionable action occurred . So in fact, you have a huge deterrent and “chilling effect” against ever being able to commence an arbitration proceeding, especially since under the MEM model, that requires FULL consensus, i.e. unanimous vote for all types of community enforcement. Sidley/ Adler have made it clear that the Board’s concerns about Community Enforcement Action “running wild” can be addressed through the establishment of thresholds and that these can vary in relation to the action sought to be taken, e.g. whether it’s budget, operating plan, strategic plan, and or removal of directors. I assume these can also vary according to how many SOs and ACs are participating in the sole member for the purpose of achieving some level of consensus as to any particular community power. In the single member model, the Community gets to take action and then the Board can object to that action and have that examined. The threshold for taking action can be different in each area. For example, you could require unanimity to dump the whole Board. It seems to me the VERY SIGNIFICANT difference is timing and that this is a very significant aspect of enforceability. By way of example, if you establish a unanimous threshold for dumping the whole Board, then in the single member model, if the single member votes unanimously to dump the whole Board, it happens and new Board members get appointed and then the Board follows the objection procedures. In the MEM model, if the Community wants to dump the whole Board, individual SO/AC leaders are forced to individually file an arbitration proceeding, then the opposing parties argue over who the best arbitrators will be, then everyone disagrees and also finds that the arbitrators they want are not available for months. The dispute drags on forever. The Board remains as it was (unremoved) and the Community suffers through the arbitration the same way we suffered through the .africa IRP. The Board apparently takes the view that the MEM constitutes adequate enforcement in light of the CWG-Stewardship requirements. I do not really see it. As to why the Board cannot see its way clear to participating with the Community to establish reasonable restrictions on the powers of a Single Member, that strikes me as stubbornness. The notion that the multistakeholder community is not sufficiently accountable is simply not credible given that the Board has been endorsing policy made by this very community for years, not only Consensus Policy a to Contracted Parties, but the entire range of policies adopted in the new gTLD program. No one on the Board said, “It would be dangerous and destabilizing if we were to authorize the launch of a thousand new gTLDs because the Community is not sufficiently represented in the policy-making process and the SOs and ACs aren’t accountable.” Anne Anne E. Aikman-Scalese, Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP One South Church Avenue Suite 700 | Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com <mailto:AAikman@lrrlaw.com> | www.LRRLaw.com <http://www.lrrlaw.com/> From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Greg Shatan Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 2:46 PM To: Paul Rosenzweig Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current events fit under the following part of his statement: if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Greg (speaking only for myself) On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com <mailto:paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com> > wrote: Jordan This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make – First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/.... Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story: According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.” I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand. Cheers Paul Paul Rosenzweig <mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com> paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com O: +1 (202) 547-0660 <tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20547-0660> M: +1 (202) 329-9650 <tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20329-9650> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739 <tel:%2B1%20%28202%29%20738-1739> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066 <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...> Link to my PGP Key From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> ] Sent: Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community@icann.org> > Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> .docx I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...> here). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 <tel:%2B64-4-495-2118> (office) | +64-21-442-649 <tel:%2B64-21-442-649> (mob) Email: <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> jordan@internetnz.net.nz Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org <mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _____ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If the reader of this message or an attachment is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message or attachment to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender. The information transmitted in this message and any attachments may be privileged, is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the intended recipients, and is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.
Paul, that's not what I understood at all. The CWG IANA proposal along with the overall proposal that has gone through the ICG is what's going to be sent to NTIA. The CCWG Accountability is a separate process that has NOTHING to do with NTIA apart from a small part of the CCWG's work that has to feed into the CWG's work. But the CCWG's work has to go through the Board first and the Board has every right to veto it, if it feels the proposal is incompatible with the public interest. I think people are really getting confused here. Kind regards, Olivier On 09/10/2015 19:59, Paul Rosenzweig wrote:
Jordan
This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended. I have two modest amendments to your timeline to make –
First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015. I think it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal, that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/....
Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership. That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that hearing far more significant to your story:
According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.”
I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG. A fair reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I think this particular episode is worth noting. It also makes me wonder whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears directly on the issues at hand.
Cheers
Paul
Paul Rosenzweig
paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com <mailto:paul.rosenzweigesq@redbranchconsulting.com>
O: +1 (202) 547-0660
M: +1 (202) 329-9650
VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739
Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066
Link to my PGP Key <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article...>
*From:*Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz] *Sent:* Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM *To:* Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> *Subject:* [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers
Jordan
ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
--
Jordan Carter
Chief Executive *InternetNZ*
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter
Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz>
/A better world through a better Internet /
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Dear Jordan, for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply. NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN. The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress. So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability. Kind regards, Olivier On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote:
Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan
ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive *InternetNZ*
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz <mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: www.internetnz.nz <http://www.internetnz.nz>
/A better world through a better Internet /
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below: "These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7 On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote: Dear Jordan, for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply. NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN. The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress. So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability. Kind regards, Olivier On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Agreed, if we need 5 more years then we need to ask NTIA for 5 more years. I would prefer a transition that met the needs of the entire multistakeholder community in 5 years than one that was potentially ‘tainted’ in the eyes of some observers, next September. I continue to believe that we are rushing this process, I think that our timelines are too tight and are leading to tense, reactionary, and unhelpful positions from all involved. -jg On 10/10/2015, 8:35 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Chartier, Mike S" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of mike.s.chartier@intel.com> wrote:
Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below:
"These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7
On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote:
Dear Jordan,
for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply.
NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN.
The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress.
So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability.
Kind regards,
Olivier
On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz>
A better world through a better Internet
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Hi, I agree that we need to achieve the right result. I disagree that need more time beyond the end of this year to nail down an agreed upon plan - that is just a matter of coming to agreement. If we wait another 5 years, we may find ourselves again at this very same inflection point, one that has plagued ICANN for a very long time. One that is less important as long as there is NTIA oversight but becomes critical as soon as we lose them as backstop - the idea of who the Board is accountable to. Without a Member model, the Board remains accountable only to itself, despite any possible, yet impractical, capability of removing the Board. avri On 10-Oct-15 15:41, James Gannon wrote:
Agreed, if we need 5 more years then we need to ask NTIA for 5 more years. I would prefer a transition that met the needs of the entire multistakeholder community in 5 years than one that was potentially ‘tainted’ in the eyes of some observers, next September. I continue to believe that we are rushing this process, I think that our timelines are too tight and are leading to tense, reactionary, and unhelpful positions from all involved.
-jg
On 10/10/2015, 8:35 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Chartier, Mike S" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of mike.s.chartier@intel.com> wrote:
Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below:
"These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7
On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote:
Dear Jordan,
for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply.
NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN.
The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress.
So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability.
Kind regards,
Olivier
On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz>
A better world through a better Internet
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For an abundance of clarity I definitely don’t think we need 5 years, I was using OCLs example as a point of note, I personally think that end of the year might be a little tight even the current state of disagreement with the board but I think a reasonable timeframe should be possible after Dublin. -James On 10/10/2015, 8:52 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Avri Doria" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of avri@acm.org> wrote:
Hi,
I agree that we need to achieve the right result.
I disagree that need more time beyond the end of this year to nail down an agreed upon plan - that is just a matter of coming to agreement.
If we wait another 5 years, we may find ourselves again at this very same inflection point, one that has plagued ICANN for a very long time. One that is less important as long as there is NTIA oversight but becomes critical as soon as we lose them as backstop - the idea of who the Board is accountable to. Without a Member model, the Board remains accountable only to itself, despite any possible, yet impractical, capability of removing the Board.
avri
On 10-Oct-15 15:41, James Gannon wrote:
Agreed, if we need 5 more years then we need to ask NTIA for 5 more years. I would prefer a transition that met the needs of the entire multistakeholder community in 5 years than one that was potentially ‘tainted’ in the eyes of some observers, next September. I continue to believe that we are rushing this process, I think that our timelines are too tight and are leading to tense, reactionary, and unhelpful positions from all involved.
-jg
On 10/10/2015, 8:35 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Chartier, Mike S" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of mike.s.chartier@intel.com> wrote:
Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below:
"These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7
On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote:
Dear Jordan,
for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply.
NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN.
The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress.
So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability.
Kind regards,
Olivier
On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz>
A better world through a better Internet
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
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Agree with Avri. It's pretty standard practice for these types of negotiations to fill up all the allotted time. -----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 3:53 PM To: accountability-cross-community@icann.org Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Hi, I agree that we need to achieve the right result. I disagree that need more time beyond the end of this year to nail down an agreed upon plan - that is just a matter of coming to agreement. If we wait another 5 years, we may find ourselves again at this very same inflection point, one that has plagued ICANN for a very long time. One that is less important as long as there is NTIA oversight but becomes critical as soon as we lose them as backstop - the idea of who the Board is accountable to. Without a Member model, the Board remains accountable only to itself, despite any possible, yet impractical, capability of removing the Board. avri On 10-Oct-15 15:41, James Gannon wrote:
Agreed, if we need 5 more years then we need to ask NTIA for 5 more years. I would prefer a transition that met the needs of the entire multistakeholder community in 5 years than one that was potentially ‘tainted’ in the eyes of some observers, next September. I continue to believe that we are rushing this process, I think that our timelines are too tight and are leading to tense, reactionary, and unhelpful positions from all involved.
-jg
On 10/10/2015, 8:35 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Chartier, Mike S" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of mike.s.chartier@intel.com> wrote:
Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below:
"These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7
On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote:
Dear Jordan,
for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply.
NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN.
The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress.
So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability.
Kind regards,
Olivier
On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dubli n-thoughts> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin -thoughts
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty -chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-acct y-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz>
A better world through a better Internet
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Got that at least someone is coming around. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 10 Oct 2015, at 21:41, James Gannon <james@cyberinvasion.net> wrote:
Agreed, if we need 5 more years then we need to ask NTIA for 5 more years. I would prefer a transition that met the needs of the entire multistakeholder community in 5 years than one that was potentially ‘tainted’ in the eyes of some observers, next September. I continue to believe that we are rushing this process, I think that our timelines are too tight and are leading to tense, reactionary, and unhelpful positions from all involved.
-jg
On 10/10/2015, 8:35 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Chartier, Mike S" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of mike.s.chartier@intel.com> wrote:
Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below:
"These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7
On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote:
Dear Jordan,
for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply.
NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN.
The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress.
So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability.
Kind regards,
Olivier
On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all,
Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing.
See many of you in Dublin next week!
cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...
You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events.
Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.
You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
.pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them:
* Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them).
* Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.
Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude.
ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now.
(To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.)
We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.
The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement.
Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.
Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof.
In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not.
No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition.
No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
-- Jordan Carter
Chief Executive InternetNZ
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz>
A better world through a better Internet
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
+1 - Further - the Final Report of the CWG-Stewardship is conditioned on the community powers being available - in that report, the Second Draft proposals of the CCWG-ACCT as to community powers are described as both "necessary and sufficient". If enforceability is changed measurably, we have to go back to Stewardship and ask them to open up their report again. Anne E. Aikman-Scalese Of Counsel Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP | One South Church Avenue Suite 700 Tucson, Arizona 85701-1611 (T) 520.629.4428 | (F) 520.879.4725 AAikman@lrrlaw.com | www.LRRLaw.com -----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Chartier, Mike S Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 12:36 PM To: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond Cc: Accountability Cross Community Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin Olivier, Both processes are required. NTIA's position is documented in their third report to Congress. Relevant part below: "These two multistakeholder processes – the IANA stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN accountability – are directly linked, and NTIA has repeatedly said that both sets of issues must be addressed before any transition takes place. ICANN has indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG and CCWG proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward them promptly and without modification to NTIA.7 On Oct 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com<mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote: Dear Jordan, for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply. NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability process. NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions - ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure, for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from the Operation of the functions. That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for ICANN. The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal; that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition". To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these recommendations by the Board under duress. So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all* SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it. The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability. Kind regards, Olivier On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter wrote: Hi all, Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to this post. A blog post with my reflections is below. Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. See many of you in Dublin next week! cheers Jordan ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts 9 October - at <https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though...> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-though... You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant events. Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry. To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on. You can review (and critique) the chronology here: .pdf<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf> .docx<https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some of them: * Astonishing progress: since the end of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the ICANN community yet. * Consistent resistance and delay: the powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process. The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG isn’t responsible. * The rightness of multistakeholderism: the community has followed a true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/00...>). The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not one of them). * Proof of need: looking over the short history of the current debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community are required. Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability. * Some welcome flexibility: a year ago, if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved. Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with solitude. ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no alternative to making accountability improvements now. (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this year.) We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy. The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will flow from a new accountability settlement. Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean. My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them, that matter. The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government, a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour. Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be bullet proof. In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or not. No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No transition proposal – no transition. No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot. Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin. Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.” -- Jordan Carter Chief Executive InternetNZ +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob) Email: jordan@internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz> Skype: jordancarter Web: <http://www.internetnz.nz> www.internetnz.nz<http://www.internetnz.nz> A better world through a better Internet _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community ________________________________ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. 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participants (19)
-
Aikman-Scalese, Anne -
Avri Doria -
Beran Dondeh -
Chartier, Mike S -
Dr Eberhard W Lisse -
Dr Eberhard W Lisse -
Greg Shatan -
James Gannon -
Jonathan Zuck -
Jordan Carter -
Kavouss Arasteh -
Matthew Shears -
Nigel Roberts -
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond -
Paul Rosenzweig -
Phil Corwin -
Robin Gross -
Ron Baione -
Steve DelBianco