I disagree with Karl that California remains the best jurisdictional bet...

Incorporation in international law is what is needed, and then location does not matter much. But perhaps we are coming from different standpoints and motivations. Mine is that of an understandable desire of the non US world not to have such a key global infrastructure as the Internet, in its some basic functioning and governance, being subject to one country's jurisdiction.

As a stop gap measure, before such incorporation under international law can be worked out, a new ICANN free from formal NTIA oversight should set up a parallel redundant authoritative root in a non US location, which is fully primed to work and take over from the US based one the moment there is any interference by the US state - whether its judicial, legislative or executive branch, either in ICANN's policy process, or actual entries in the authoritative root. Since Internet's root system works by reputation and 'community acceptance' and not by any necessary physical components and linkages, this should be easy to work out.. This IMHO would be the best interim check on the US state's possibilities to interfere with ICANN/ root file business.

parminder

On Friday 26 February 2016 09:31 PM, Karl Auerbach wrote:

On 2/26/16 12:55 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Karl makes a compelling case why ICANN should not be a California corporation.
That was not my point at all.

One can go to pretty much any country, any state, on the Earth and will find similar laws.

There will, of course, be variations in color and texture among those laws.  But no matter where, when people pool their interests in a common enterprise there will be the same questions of control during times of agreement and times of disagreement.  From the 17th to the 20th century European ideas of organization were spread around the world.

These laws have been polished through centuries of experience.  Those who think they have a better idea often discover that that idea has occurred before and was found wanting.

I am old enough to have come of age during the "flower power" era of the 1960's.  I saw (and experienced) a lot of people and groups who rejected "the establishment" and sought to reshape the world along lines that were less confrontational,  more "personally empowered", more "love, peace, and good vibes".   Those attempts, like previous Utopian movements, faded because they were based on aspirations rather than recognition of hard lessons of experience with human nature.

These proposals to restructure ICANN are similarly aspirational.  And similarly unrealistic.

Perhaps most unrealistic is the idea that "we can just pick up and move to somewhere else".

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.  And if one takes a look around it's going to be hard to find a place that is more amenable than California to innovated organizational structures.  Which is a good reason to look at what the aging Hippies who now run California have put into California's public-benefit/non-profit corporations law with regard to membership and the powers of that membership.

Don't fight the system.  Use it.

        --karl--



  


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