Re: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@bertola.eu.org>]

On Sat, 01 Mar 2003 21:33:45 +0000, you wrote:

>2) As already discussed, there is no big problem, from my POV, to give to 
>International Treaty Organizations (ITU or other) the parts of the supposed 
>mission of ICANN that are best handled outside the control of a single 
>Government (example, the management of the Root).

Theoretically speaking, it is clear that legitimacy to be the sole
controller of global resources can only come from global organizations, and
not by a single government. In this respect, ITU is better than ICANN - and
ICANN should make its founding roots more international as soon as possible.

Practically speaking, you still have to understand how users could
participate and have a voice in ITU. This workshop on ccTLDs has been open,
well organized and extremely interesting. But if ITU was to host the making
of a policy decision on, say, creating a new gTLD, how would it practically
happen? In ICANN you have a clear path of participation for users, even if
weak, while currently ITU is only participated by governments and
industries. I think they still have to propose a solution to this problem,
and to the more general problem of how to make policy in the Internet field
(which is very different from other media that they are used to regulate,
where users, for example, are almost completely passive).

By the way, my (personal) submission here at the ITU workshop was focused on
the fact that you need to involve users in Internet governance, otherwise
you will break the "competitive advantages" that have let the Internet grow.
You can read the paper I submitted at
http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/workshop/cctld/cctld049.pdf.

>The Regional model of the RALOs is not a bad one, giving the current 
>circumstances. It is not perfect, and it can be criticized by the 
>maximalists of the "one-person-one-vote" party. While the 
>"one-person-one-vote" can be a target, it is absolutely impossible that it 
>could lead to meaningful results in the shoert term (IMHO). Letīs face it: 
>none of us has the slightest idea on how to contact and bring to the ballot 
>box millions of users worldwide. Besides, does anybody have any idea about 
>"why" should they care?
>But on one thing I would make a clear statement: the future AL Directors 
>should take a strong commitment to have during their mandate one highest 
>overriding priority, which is to do their best to organiza the AL community 
>to be more mature the next time around.

One key point is that you really need to have a global-local model, such as
the RALO one, if you want this to happen. You cannot think to be able to
prepare or devise from the top an instrument that offers suitable
participation to any individual in any part of the world, with any culture
and any language. You have to encourage small groups of users to
self-organize locally as they wish, and then coordinate them to make them
discuss and come to a clear and widely supported position. This is exactly
what RALOs (and, if participation grew, NALOs at a national level, perhaps
coinciding with ccTLD memberships / user constituencies where present) are
meant to do.

>Incidentally, I still believe that this is best done via Regional councils, 
>and that it has been a terrible mistake to change this approach for a direct 
>election. A Director is powerless in organizing the AL community in his/her 
>region: I canīt blame Andy for not having done it in my region, as he has 
>enough to do for the Board, let alone the fact that he must do something 
>else for living, as most of us. A team of Council Delegates from different 
>countries would have had more time and resources to do it (incidentally, 
>that would have also helped the localization of ICANN).

So we basically agree :-)
-- 
vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
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