Roberto, If there is a geopolitical forum, a fitting topic for the forum would be one that would discuss positive ways of bringing political blocks together to keep the Internet global. It needs to be a conversation to determine confidence building measures and foster dialogue, not merely complain that the Internet is being pulled in different directions. Sivasubramanian M On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 10:15 PM Roberto Gaetano via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> wrote:
Dear all,
I have another commitment that I am unable to postpone, so, regretfully, I will not attend this call.
I will therefore paste below a contribution that I have provided to another list to provide my position for the topic at hand - and add a couple of comments to observations made yesterday in the chat.
*I believe that ICANN does have a political role, the point is to be clear about what role and in favour of whom.* *To resist the temptation to cut off pieces of the unique, interoperable Internet *is* a political position, whether it comes from Ukraine to close .ru or from the US to close .ly or .ir.*
*No matter how sad we are about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how frustrated we are for not being able to do much, we have to understand that while us, as individuals, have these feelings, ICANN has to act taking a higher view of the issues at hand, abstracting from the current situation and holding tightly to general principles. And the general principle is that whatever results in breaking the unique, interoperable Internet is *bad* and must not be done.*
*Just think how happy would be the Russian and Chinese Governments, to name just two of the many, who have asked for some form of breaks in the Internet infrastructure or have actively put barriers that break the interoperability - not to even mention uniqueness - of the Internet? I can hear them say, maybe at a UN meeting: “You see that they speak one thing and do the opposite?”; “So breaking the Internet is possible and accepted?”; and, last but not least “How can we leave the coordination of a global infrastructure in the hands of a body that takes decisions in favour of one part of the world?”*
*Obviously, the same rules would apply if Russia manages to get control over the Ukrainian Government, and a new Ukrainian government asks IANA to relegate .ua: the relegation should be denied.*
*16:38:48 From Jeffrey Neuman to Everyone: *There are other types of things that can be done: (a) ICANN can stop using vendors based in Russia, (b) ICANN can not consider fellows from Russia, (c) they can donate money to support the infrastructure of the Internet in Ukraine, etc.
I agree, there are other things that can be considered that do not risk to break the Internet. Of course, every idea should be discussed to figure out the (possibly unintended) consequences. For instance I wonder whether (b) above would eliminate the possibility to young people to come to an ICANN meeting and hear voices that differ from the domestic propaganda. OTOH (c) seems perfect - and also timely ad there might be disruptions caused by the war that have to be cured.
One thing that the GAC could do is to propose a motion. After all, the UN GA has passed a motion with some 140+ Yes, 5 No, some 35 abstain (if I remember correctly) and chances are that we have in the GAC a similar distribution.
I am also sure that the ICANN 73 agenda will be updated including space for discussions about this topic. Regardless the action that we take about the Russian invasion of Ukraine there is the need to discuss among ourselves the different position in a plenary where all stakeholder groups are presenting their view. There has been also a direct request to Göran by the Ukrainian Government (attached below), to which Göran has so replied: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/marby-to-fedorov-02mar2... - I think that it is important that the community takes a common position that the different stakeholders could present in case they are faced with similar requests.
I will listen to the recording
Cheers, Roberto
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