[ga] ICANN as a Decentralized Coordinator

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting comments from the most recent ASO AC
teleconference:
http://aso.icann.org/meetings/ac/ac-20051012.html

WW: All of my notes are related to the section "Major
issues that need to be considered in the 2006-2009
Strategic Plan." 

In relation to the paragraph that begins "Members of
the community suggest that the demands on ICANN to
encourage all relevant parties to take part in the
ICANN process and also to accommodate all Internet
users as members of the ICANN community have a number
of implications," my general comment is that the
wording used is still extremely ICANN centered. 

I get the feeling that it is written with the mindset
that ICANN fits somewhere and the rest of the
community across the globe is expected to come to
ICANN instead of ICANN being developed into something
which is distributed across the focal points where the
infrastructure is used. 

In my opinion this is not so much a geographical
problem, as it is a cultural and legal problem. I feel
ICANN should not expect the world to come to an
organization which is incorporated under one
particular national law, but that ICANN should become
something formally and legally distributed around the
globe. Then, if for any reason one of the integral
pieces of ICANN has problems and cannot perform its
functions, the Internet could root around the problem
and simply ignore or partition the defunct part and
all the other entities could simply continue with
business.

LH: That's an interesting idea for decentralization
given that ICANN only defines missions. As far as I
can tell from their bylaws, they have a coordination
role. I have trouble imagining a decentralized
coordination role. I can actually imagine some
additional risks: being sued or subject to whichever
laws are the least favorable to ICANN in various
jurisdictions. 

RP: Actually you can have decentralized execution of
coordination. Having everything concentrated in one
place is a real problem. 

LH: I agree that having a presence in different parts
would be positive, but having a separate organization
incorporated in different parts of the world is a
different matter altogether.

WW: In the case of the NRO, if you take away the NRO
you would still be left with five independent RIRs,
each one of those five regional entities could
continue to function either as a single body or as a
group of bodies. But if you take away the company
incorporated in California ICANN is gone and, other
than dealing with financial things or things related
to the US Department of Commerce, I don?t see any
vital functions of ICANN that couldn?t continue with a
home base outside of the United States. 

LH: I still think that there are two different points
there: 1) Could ICANN's headquarters be moved?, and 2)
Could there be, for example, five ICANNs running in
parallel?

RP: The real problem is that ICANN has never really
attempted to regionalize. What they do is they hire
people and put them in offices in different places but
they are clearly functioning out of the headquarters
in Marina del Rey. The fact that they haven?t seen the
need for regionalized offices in North America is kind
of troublesome, as they could easily set one up in
Canada. 

HG: Let me use an example: ICANN made the decision
that every meeting should be held in a different
continent, and after 25 meetings probably we have
already gone to all the rich countries. What we need
now is to have ICANN meetings in other countries that
do not have the necessary financial resources. Next
year, in November, it's Latin America's turn and we
expect an invitation from Central America. However,
none of the countries are able to invite 500-800
people to an ICANN meeting. 

If ICANN is not willing to include in their budget a
strategic amount (e.g. 100-150 thousand dollars) for
each meeting, poor countries cannot have meetings.

This is one of the problems: ICANN never supports us
so that we can go to the ICANN meetings. This is
probably a point that we should mention on the
Strategic Plan. I think ICANN should include a
specific item in the budget so that ICANN can spend
specific funds on international meetings. 

SJ: I agree. I also think that one way of doing some
outreach for ICANN would be to maybe subsidize some
people in poor countries to go to ICANN meetings.
Maybe this is also a way for people from developing
countries to attend these meetings. It's not only a
matter of having a nice meeting, it's also necessary
having people attend.




		
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