You raise the idea that the UN ICAO and Industry IATA organizational combo is an example of an existing multistakeholder infrastructure. Unfortunately, I’m not very familiar with these organizations. I’m particularly interested in the end user stakeholder experience within these organizations.
Yes, I raise the idea that the two-faceted ICAO/IATA is an example of a way to balance multilateral and multistakeholder interests and demands. I am not saying that it is an exact implementation to replicate. As I have said before, other organizations such as the UPU and the ITU have arisen, with different structures to address their own sectors' unique needs. The needs of Internet governance will be similarly unique. But I find the bicameral concept to be one that ought to at least be explored. The Internet commercial interests have tried to assert that they can do governance without need of treaty or bilateralism and I've come to the conclusion that's just daft.
I find the harping on the specifics of the two organizations fascinating, though, as well as the attempt to view them through the paradigm of ICANN's structures.
Can you tell me more about the public advisory capacities of these organizations?
ICAO has what it calls a
Roster of Experts that anyone can apply to join. Currently there are about 6,000 members of this Roster worldwide.
IATA
does not have a direct public participation component, but it does have
an accreditation and association for travel agents which are certainly
among the field's stakeholders.
Is there an ICANN At-Large equivalent component that has board level representation at ICAO/IATA?
No. But so what? Given that I consider ICANN At-Large a self-enfeebling and generally useless mechanism, I am doubtful that an equivalent mechanism would have any better voice in the field of air travel than it does in the world of Internet domains in advancing the public interest. Heck, At-Large can't even agree whether or not its constituency includes registrants, whose interests are often in conflict with non-registrant Internet users. Such ambiguity rarely exists elsewhere, but here it is an ambiguity of At-Large's own making and active maintenance. I consider it an advantage of other organizations that have explored public participation based on expertise and meritocracy rather than the impotent, self-important burden that At-Large has become.
As an airline end-user, do I have similar rights to participate in a bottom-up ICAN/IATA policy process that I have as an individual member of the ICANN At-Large community?
I haven't tried so I can't say definitively. But since I believe that the At-Large Community has been ineffective at what it was designed to do, whatever processes ICAO (and the ITU, UPU etc) have in place are unlikely to be worse.
I guess my main overall point is that, regardless of the ways these entities have evolved to incorporate public participation, the complex and self-important charade that is ICANN At-Large is not demonstrably better at asserting the public interest. Indeed, where ICANN does its best job at serving the public interest -- through advisory bodies such as RSAC and SSAC, themselves based on expertise rather than political participation -- At-Large is not a factor. That is not a coincidence.
Cheers,
Evan