[ga] Re: [Politech] Does ICANN need an ombudsman?

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Declan, Jonathan, and all,

  As you likely know Jonathan, getting off the dime so to speak on
adhering to their own bylaws has often times been a pacarious
exercise in the extreme.  As such it would seem that short of
having DOC/NTIA requiring the ICANN BoD and staff to
provide for a ombudsman that is not another crony of some
sort or another is likely to yet again prove to be another
pacarious exercise as it would leave an appearance that
the current ICANN General council is inadequate, which
is already been made quite obvious on a number of well
documented occasions...

Declan McCullagh wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: ICANN's missing ombuds (fixed typos)
> Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 18:13:06 -0500
> From: Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: declan@xxxxxxxx
>
> Ethan Katsh is one of the most consummately reasonable people I've ever
> met.  He studies dispute resolution, and has quietly blandished ICANN for a
> period of years to include a simple form of accountability in its
> structure.  He succeeded twice -- an older set of ICANN bylaws had a
> section about chartering an independent review panel, and a set of
> amendments in December '02 requires ICANN to have an ombudsperson.  These
> successes are rather hollow, since while pointing to these reforms in a
> series of reports to the US Dept of Commerce and others, ICANN never
> appointed the panel and hasn't hired an ombuds.
>
> Ethan's description of the situation is laid out in a letter that's as
> temperate as it is devastating: see <http://www.odr.info/icann/>.  Politech
> has followed ICANN's ups and downs since its inception; I wonder if anyone
> out there has ideas about how to actually press the institution to be true
> to its own rules -- or to offer a persuasive explanation about why it so
> far hasn't.  ...JZ
>
> Jon Zittrain
> Harvard Law School
> Jack N. & Lillian R. Berkman Assistant Professor
>    for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies
> Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
> <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/zittrain>
>
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Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
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