[Internal-cg] Fw: Blog post by Kathy

[Demi Getschko]

Hi all!

Just forwarding an interesting text from Kathy's Blog at:

https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/public-policy/2016/01/iana-keeping-ultimate-objective-mind

===
Later this week, ICANN’s Chartering Organizations will indicate whether 
they will support the third draft proposal of the CCWG-Accountability 
Work Stream 1 Recommendations. This is a significant moment in the IANA 
transition process. Support for the accountability proposal by the ICANN 
community will mean that we are very close to a point when the 
transition can move to its next phase.

Since the beginning of this process, the IANA transition has had many 
moving parts. In its original announcement, NTIA identified what it 
called “directly affected parties” – each of whom had work to do to 
develop a consensus proposal on how the transition could take place in a 
way that upholds the core principles that NTIA set forward.

On the operational side, this work has been completed by the IETF, the 
RIRs and, for the most part, by the names community.

The remaining piece is to ensure that, post-transition, ICANN is fully 
accountable to the community it serves. This work has been ably led by 
the CCWG.

In Dublin, the community reached a milestone inasmuch as it agreed, in 
concept, to work within a so-called Single Designator Model. It is 
understood that this governance model can meet the requirements of the 
community for accountability while having minimal impact on ICANN’s 
corporate structure.

There is also agreement on a set of community powers “designed to 
empower the community to hold ICANN accountable for the organization’s 
Principles”.

In addition, there is general agreement on the need to clarify ICANN’s 
Mission & core values; to appropriately reaffirm ICANN’s commitment to 
human rights; and, to discuss the accountability of the Supporting 
Organizations and Advisory Committees.

Finally, in Dublin, the community agreed to a general set of procedural 
steps for the exercise of the community powers, namely:

Community powers will be exercised through consensus: Engage, Escalate, 
Enforce.

In short, there appears to be consensus around a governance framework 
for how accountability will work inside ICANN going forward.

Let’s not lose sight of this considerable progress.

The open questions that remain to be solved have to do the scope of 
those powers, who exercises these powers, and the implications for ICANN 
as a corporation. While these issues are by no means trivial, they are 
solvable, particularly if the parties stay focused and collaborate in 
good faith.

It strikes me that we are in a place where we need to grab consensus 
knowing that the community has done the hard work of satisfying the 
fundamentals of its Charter -- meeting the criteria for success that has 
been set forth, not just by NTIA, but by and for itself. I was 
encouraged by Steve Crocker’s blog earlier this week in which he 
expressed the Board’s commitment to work with the community to get the 
transition done on time.

For the past few weeks, there have been intense discussions on how to 
improve the current draft proposal based on community feedback. This is 
typical in any consensus process but in working collaboratively towards 
the ultimate objective, we should make sure that the timeframe of the 
transition is met.

Importantly, while the discussions about accountability are primarily 
focused on the ICANN community and its processes, the outcome of this is 
critical for the IANA transition as a whole and for all the directly 
affected parties to the transition.

Moreover, seeing this transition through, in a timeframe that is 
realistic in light of the U.S. political environment, matters for the 
entire multistakeholder ecosystem. We cannot go back – we cannot simply 
pretend that the past 22 months haven’t changed the landscape for 
Internet governance. They have. If we, as a community, fail to deliver, 
there will be ripple effects throughout the IG ecosystem.

But if we succeed, when we succeed, we will have collectively done the 
right thing for the Internet.
===

best
demi