Sorry for the cross post
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Gurstein <mgurst@vcn.bc.ca>
To: Wsis-Prep1 <Wsis-Prep1@lists.cpsr.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 11:03 PM
Subject: [wsis-prep1] United Nations vs. ICANN: One ccTLD At A Time
> (Identified by Hans Klein on the WSIS PrepCom1 list...
>
> MG
>
> http://www.circleid.com/articles/2564.asp
>
>
> United Nations vs. ICANN: One ccTLD At A Time
>
> January 29, 2003
>
> By Akash Kapur | Add+Read Comments | Email Article
>
>
>
> What happens if ICANN fails? Who will run the DNS then?
>
> Of course to many, ICANN already has failed -- spectacularly so. Critics
> have long complained that ICANN not only lacks accountability and
> legitimacy, but also that it is inefficient (at best) and downright
> destructive (at worst). According to these critics, ICANN's many sins
> include threatening the stability of the Internet, limiting access by
> imposing an artificial domain name scarcity, and generally behaving like a
> petulant dictator.
>
> But what happens if ICANN really fails-that is, if its failures come to
seem
> so spectacular and so self-evident and so irremediable that even the
United
> States Department of Commerce (DOC) decides it's had enough. It's easy to
> forget that ICANN is already operating under a Damocles sword: when the
DOC
> renewed its contract last September, it did so only for a year (the
original
> contract was for four years), and with a number of (fairly) stringent
> conditions, notably that ICANN fully reform itself within that year (the
new
> MOU & accompanying statement). So what happens if we get to next September
> and the DOC comes to the conclusion that ICANN has not met those
conditions?
> What happens to the global naming system?
>
> There is, of course, little reason to fear a total collapse-the Internet
> (mercifully) is stronger than one (badly-run) organization. And, never
fear,
> there will be no shortage of candidates eager to take over ICANN's work.
> After all, who wouldn't want the chance to "run the Internet"? (Not to
> mention the opportunity to travel in style to three-or is it four?-exotic
> locations every year).
>
> Less flippantly, the reason ICANN's demise might turn out to be fairly
> uneventful is because there already exist several bodies that could in
> theory pick up the slack. One reason the DOC renewed ICANN's contract last
> September was-in the DOC's own words--because "no obvious alternative
> exists." But is that really true? Aren't we living in an era of global
civil
> society? Last time I checked, the world was awash with non-governmental
(or
> inter-governmental, or multi-sectoral: pick your jargon) bodies that
> possessed both the technical competence and global reach to manage the
DNS.
>
> Two obvious candidates are, of course, the International
Telecommunications
> Union (ITU) and the United Nations (UN). Both bodies (in fact part of the
> same organization, but often treated as distinct entities) have been
sending
> out feelers about a possible role in Internet governance. Earlier this
> month, for example, Yoshio Utsumi, the secretary general of the ITU,
> reiterated his call (originally made late last year) for cyberspace
> regulation. "We need a common framework or regulatory regime because [the
> information society] is borderless, and we have to create this new
> framework," he said, adding that issues such as taxation, freedom of
speech,
> intellectual property rights, security and privacy could be ripe
candidates
> for such regulation. He plans to bring these issues up again at the World
> Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held at the end of December
> at the United Nations.
>
> Itsumi's comments take on added significance in the context of a continued
> background buzz about the ITU's ambitions, particularly with regard to
> ccTLDs (See, for example, this post, or this one, both from ICANNWatch.
Also
> this statement from the ITU). Although he did not explicitly say that the
> ITU should be the one to do the regulating, and although he did not
> explicitly include DNS matters in his list of candidates for regulation,
his
> general drift is clear. You don't have to read too closely between the
lines
> to figure that, as far as the ITU is concerned, ICANN's role in Internet
> governance should at the least be supplemented (if not altogether
replaced)
> by another organization. In either case, there will be no "mission creep":
> as the scope of Internet governance expands, ICANN's work will remain
> limited, and ultimately, may become peripheral.
>
> The ITU can no doubt make a convincing case for itself. So can the UN,
> which, like the ITU, appears to have its eyes on certain aspects of
Internet
> governance. Of course, this being the UN, the whole process is likely to
be
> far more civil, and cloaked in niceties about public service and
consensus.
> But if I'd been a member of ICANN's ruling coterie, a shiver would have
run
> through my spine in Ghana last year, when Kofi Annan invited ICANN to
"join
> hands with the United Nations Information and Communication Technology
Task
> Force."
>
> The collaboration, ostensibly, would be to further the cause of developing
> nations on ICANN-a noble cause if ever there was one (and one,
incidentally,
> that has been taken up by Stuart Lynn, at least in rhetoric if not in
> substance). But even a casual observer of ICANN knows that the
"invitation"
> is made in the context of growing resentment about the extent to which
> developing nations have been excluded from the body (and certainly, from
its
> expensive, globetrotting conferences). A storm of discontent is brewing:
> I've had several conversations with representatives from developing
nations
> who would be a lot less gentle than the ever-gentlemanly Annan. They would
> have the UN-ICT, rather than ICANN itself, direct the whole process of
> outreach to developing nations; they would, effectively, rewrite the rules
> of participation in ICANN.
>
> In this context, an interesting development: Shortly after the new year,
> IANA announced that management of the ."af" ccTLD (for Afghanistan) had
been
> handed over to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Could this
> signal a trend? If the UN gets into the domain name business, there's no
> telling where it all might end.
>
> Of course managing a single country's ccTLD, or simply running outreach
> programs to developing countries, does not quite signal a death-knell for
> ICANN. What we may be witnessing is a gradual process in which individual
> functions of Internet governance are slowly assumed by organizations other
> than ICANN-a process of attrition rather than outright decapitation. But
it
> is in this fashion, brick by brick, that empires far mightier than ICANN
> have been brought down.
>
> And why not? There are, I think, lots of compelling reasons for thinking
> that many of ICANN's tasks could be more effectively managed by
alternative
> organizations. After all, bodies like the ITU or the UN (or the IETF or,
god
> forbid, something like the World Bank) are far more developed as
> institutions, are global in composition, have well-tested rules for
> participation and voting, and have ample technical capacity. It makes
sense
> for them to eventually run the DNS, perhaps in some kind of collaboration,
> perhaps through some kind of innovative inter-institutional structure.
>
> But there's also one very compelling reason to think that'll never
> happen-and here we return to the DOC. At the end of the day, ICANN or no
> ICANN, it's the United States that decides who runs the Internet. And
> although the days when America almost bankrupted the United Nations are
> gone, relations are still notoriously testy between the sole superpower
and
> most multi-lateral organizations. There's simply no way America is going
to
> hand over the Internet to the French!
>
> That's particularly true amid all the post-September 11 fear over Internet
> security and cyber-terrorism. Indeed, anyone who read the statement
> accompanying the DOC's renewal of ICANN's MOU would have been struck by
the
> repeated references to the need for stability and security. "Abruptly
> changing oversight of critical DNS functions," the statement said, "could
> deeply challenge [those goals]."
>
> But then the statement goes on to say that, in case ICANN fails to reform,
> "alternatives will be identified and considered." It's still unclear
whether
> existing bodies like the ITU or the UN will make the cut. But for ICANN,
the
> clock's ticking.
>
>
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