Re: [ga] ITU Resolution 102 -- four years later

["Roberto Gaetano" <ploki_xyz@hotmail.com>]

Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>
>I agree with most parts of your description. I am not convinced though it 
>would be the
>best solution if the ITU stepped in and took over the control over the 
>root.
>
>What I find really unfortunate is that the idea of self governance is 
>linked to the
>oversight of one government. What is necessary I think is some form of 
>political
>framework that would enable a new attempt of self-governance. ICANN's 
>failure and
>incapability of reforming itself in a legitimate way does not prove that 
>self-governance
>is impossible alltogether.

I never meant to imply that self-governance is impossible altogether.
But we have to be pragmatic.
Reality has always been more a mixture of shades of gray (the optimistics 
usually say a mixture of different colours) rather than black and white.
We should refrain from categorizing things, and use Orwellian-type slogans 
like "self-governance=good;oversight=bad", and see in detail the good/bad of 
a specific solution for a specific problem.
I am culturally prone to self-governance whenever possible, but given the 
intrinsic problems of self-governance (which unfortunately equates very 
often to "leave it to the market", and therefore to the stronger players) 
when it has to do with the control of scarce and valuable resources.
Would it have been possible to coordinate the international telephone 
numbering scheme by self-governance, rather than assigning the task to a 
body "over the parties"? Would it be possible to leave the use of water and 
land to self-regulation (hint: remove the regulation that controls building 
in the US National Parks, and see what happens)?

Anyway, this is philosophy. Going back to practice, yuo mention the root.
I dont understand (or I misunderstood). Why should be an ITU-controlled 
A-root be "regulated", while an US-controlled rood considered 
"self-governed"? Please note that I am not talking at all about the 
legitimate right of private parties to try to build alternate-roots, or 
inclusive-roots, or whatever-roots, I am just talking about the jurisdiction 
under which the current A-root should be operated.

>ICANN's failure does prove though that both stricter and more
>comprehensive forms of accountability are necessary. By comprehensive I 
>mean more than
>just one government should oversee names and numbers administration.  
>Ideally, this could
>be achieved by a convention that restricts the role of governments to a 
>minimum of
>sanity,
>fairness and similar types of checks. Such a convention would provide the 
>political space
>for a new attempt governance model that aims to manage without direct 
>government
>intervention. Btw, "regulation of self-regulation" has become quite a 
>popular strategy
>recently.

Absolutely true.
Nevertheless, I was talking about function that do not imply policy 
decisions, just impartial assignment of scarce resources (addresses), or 
international jurisdiction on a key resource (the A-root).
Again, pragmatism should indicate that if we have a practical mechanism 
today, we should not try to reinvent the wheel.
About the partitioning of the address space, how do you see a convention 
gathering, and deciding? And to which extent this will become different from 
one of the existing international treaty organizations? If so, why should we 
waste resources to build a new one?
About the A-root, what do you see as a fit-for-purpose governing (or 
self-governing) body? How will this body be protected juridically from petty 
lawsuits? (incidentally, *under which jurisdiction will this body be*?)

We should clearly distinguish between what can be the object of 
self-governance, and what should be regulated. Neither set will be void.

Moreover, among the objects belonging to the latter set, we have to 
distinguish which are in the domain of a single sovereign country, and which 
are the ones that have to be governed by the international community.

Maybe if we have a clear definition of what belongs to what we can attack 
other discussions (like ccTLDs vs. gTLDs, for instance) with a more suitable 
set of tools.

Best regards
Roberto


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