Thanks Paris for pulling the RCC proposal into the broader public.
It is a tricky proposal. It includes some reasonable points, but it has a hidden agenda. It is misleading and confuses an uninformed public. Under Section 3 it argues: "The system of governance of global critical infrastructure must be equitable, neutral and immune to geopolitical challenges. The current multistkakeholder Internet Governance system does not fulfil these requirement." The first sentence needs all the support. The second sentence is not true.
After the IANA transition (2016) all stakeholders participate in ICANN as "equals" in their specific roles. The UN principle of "sovereign equality of states", a corner stone in international law and the UN charter, is fully resepcted and implemented in ICANN´s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). No single government has exceptional rights in ICANN. All governments are on "equal footing", as called for in the Tunis Agenda. And ICANN demonstrated, that it is "neutral and immune to geopolitical challenges".
A good example is from 2022. When Russia started its war against Ukraine, the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Policy wrote a letter to ICANN and was calling for the removal of the .ru. .rf (cyrillic) and .su top level domain zone files from the A-Root Server to disconnect Russia from the global Internet as a retaliation measure. Göran Marby, who was ICANN´s CEO in 2022, made clear in his answer, that ICANN will support Ukraine to remain connected to the Internet in difficult war times and will support the Internet community in Ukraine, but according to its bylaws and articles of incorproation, ICANN is not in a position to remove any TLD Zone Files from the A root server for political reasons, because ICANN is neutral and has to be "immune against geopolitical challenges".
To change this system would lead to a "system of governance of global critical infrastructure" which would loose its neutrality, become politisiezed and will be pulled into geopolitical conflicts.
Wolfgang
Pari Esfandiari via wsis20 <wsis20@icann.org> hat am 05.02.2025 11:03 CET geschrieben:
This review of the RCC’s submission in the lead-up to the WSIS+20 examines its call for a state-led approach to Internet governance and its implications for the multistakeholder model. It explores how the RCC frames its arguments around digital sovereignty, interoperability, and regulatory frameworks while assessing the potential impact on global Internet governance structures, innovation, and access. Additionally, the article considers the broader geopolitical context of the submission and its alignment—or divergence—with international efforts to maintain an open, inclusive, and secure digital environment.
Cheers,
Pari
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Pari Esfandiari
President
Pario - Architects of Ideas
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: +1-310-435-0888 (Cell)
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