Re: [ga] The news at the Lisbon meeting

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Danny Younger wrote:
> Hello Dominik,
>
> I participated remotely, but the most important
> strategic paths signalled by the PSC in my opinion
> were:
>
> (1) changing ICANN's legal status to that of an
> international nongovernmental organization
> (structurally akin to the International Red Cross)...
> this does, however, raise accountability issues)

We had a few rounds of discussion on this point on Susan Crawford's blog 
- http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/3/28/2841988.html#882117

Generally I think that ICANN is doing a lot of wishing and not a lot of 
solid thinking on the question of a new legal status.

The documents that were cited were written by a Swiss person not skilled 
in US law or politics.  And given that the status ICANN wants will 
almost certainly require Congressional *and* Presidential action, it 
will be a political decision here in the US.  And I can't say that the 
internet community here has a positive view of ICANN and would we 
willing to relinquish even the thin control and accountability that now 
exists.

I gave a talk a few years ago about how entities gain international 
legitimacy, and how ICANN is not following that road ... See "Why Louis 
XIV Would Have Loved The Internet" at 
http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_7.htm

In addition ICANN has given no thought whatsoever how such a new legal 
entity would become the successor in interest to the present ICANN. 
ICANN has created a spider's web of contracts that could be hard to 
unwind and transfer to another body, even if all parties involved were 
willing.

Moreover, I expect ICANN to be soon facing several lawsuits, such as 
from the .xxx folks, on various grounds ranging from contractual issues 
(such as the RegisterFly class action) to claims that ICANN is an 
illegal combination in restraint of trade under the laws of the US, EU, 
or somewhere.

		--karl--