Re: [ga] FYI: Working Paper on At Large Advisory Committee

[Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com>]

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Alexander Svensson wrote:

> >Why not just have the groups directly inerface with ICANN?
> 
> let me explain by taking a look at a very different Advisory
> Committee...

Please note that "Advisory" means that the advice has no force, no ability 
to compel.

That means that an "advisory" body has no ability to hold ICANN to account 
for its actions.

And it is accountability to the public that is so completely lacking from 
ICANN.

An "advisory" body would be a sham and an insult to the public and its 
interest in the way that the Internet is run.

The public requires a way to clearly mandate its views upon ICANN.  This
means, at a minimum, the ability to select the majority of people who sit,
with full powers, on ICANN's decision making organs.

Nothing less is adequate.

> ... but the GAC is the formal interface between governments and ICANN.

About the only "formal" role that I, as a member of ICANN's Board of
Directors, have observed for the GAC is that its chairman often attends
the pre-meeting dinner and that it issues highly equivocal reports
designed to offend no one.

> User groups currently *don't* have that kind of interface.

Of course, not.  ICANN has made it clear that the public interest is
simply not part of ICANN's interest.

Why do you think that ICANN would reverse its historical stance and
respond to a public advisory committee?

The public deserves nothing less than the ability to seat, and unseat, a
majority of the members of ICANN's highest decision-making body.

		--karl--


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