[PC-NCSG] NCSG statement on US Government Announcement about transfer IANA functions stewardship

[Kathy Kleiman]

+1 Good statement, tx Milton!
Kathy
:
> Great statement, and a great principle. I hope it receives wide 
> support within the NCSG and NCSG PC for endorsement.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Mar 17, 2014, at 2:52 AM, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com 
> <mailto:rafik.dammak at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> (cc NCSG-PC)
>>
>> Milton volunteered and drafted this statement regarding the NTIA 
>> announcement. we should be able to discuss (commenting here 
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VAkGj39ou5YkypFt0Vwqvyd1FTK31Ojm29s_gX-Ugrw/edit?usp=sharing 
>> ) and endorse it asap before Singapore meeting to show support and 
>> indicate our initial positions .
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
>> Rafik
>>
>>
>> ----------statement----------------
>>
>> NCSG Statement on the globalization of the IANA functions
>>
>> The Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) welcomes the 13 March 2014 
>> statement from the U.S. Commerce Department announcing its intention 
>> to “transition key Internet domain name functions to the global 
>> multistakeholder community.” We support this move because an Internet 
>> governance regime that gives one national government exclusive powers 
>> over a global resource is bound to be politically biased, divisive 
>> and promote tendencies toward Internet fragmentation. This change is 
>> long overdue.
>>
>> NCSG supports all 5 of the principles NTIA proposed to guide the 
>> transition. We agree that the transition should:
>>
>> • Support and enhance the multistakeholder model;
>>
>> • Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS;
>>
>> • Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners 
>> of the IANA services;
>>
>> • Maintain the openness of the Internet;
>>
>> • Not replace the NTIA role with a government-led or an 
>> inter-governmental organization.
>>
>> It is very important to replace the current system with a carefully 
>> considered, well-designed alternative. We note that noncommercial 
>> stakeholders have been leaders in developing plans for the proposed 
>> transition. Submissions to the Netmundial conference from two NCSG 
>> members, the Internet Governance Project and Avri Doria, have set out 
>> specific blueprints for the transition.
>>
>> Consistent with both of these proposals, NCSG proposes an additional 
>> principle to guide the transition. The transition should:
>>
>> • Enhance the accountability of ICANN through structural separation 
>> of the DNS root zone management functions from ICANN’s policy making 
>> functions
>>
>> The root zone management functions, which are currently performed by 
>> Verisign, Inc. and IANA under contracts with the U.S. government, are 
>> clerical, technical and operational, The policy making functions of 
>> ICANN, on the other hand, are highly political. NCSG believes that 
>> those two aspects of DNS governance must be kept apart, in separate 
>> organizations. Separating them ensures that those with policy and 
>> political objectives must win support for their ideas in a fair and 
>> open policy development process, and cannot arbitrarily impose them 
>> upon Internet users and service providers by virtue of their control 
>> of the operational levers of the global domain name system.
>>
>> The existing IANA contract attempts to keep the two separate; 
>> however, if ICANN simply absorbs the IANA and Verisign functions 
>> without any oversight from the U.S. government, there is a danger 
>> that the two could become integrated and intermingled in unhealthy 
>> ways. That is why the NCSG, along with supporters from other 
>> stakeholder groups, will insist on this new principle of separation 
>> during the transition process.
>>
>> The Department of Commerce has asked ICANN to “conven[e] stakeholders 
>> across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate 
>> transition plan.” Unfortunately, ICANN’s management seems to have 
>> interpreted this as a mandate to implement its own transition plan, 
>> in which it would simply take over the IANA functions with no 
>> oversight. NCSG wishes to remind ICANN that it has been charged with 
>> convening a process, not with controlling it. The transition will not 
>> work unless ICANN runs a truly open and deliberative process that 
>> allows the all ideas to be considered and the best ideas to win.
>>
>> NCSG is the voice of civil society and nonprofit organizations in 
>> ICANN’s domain name policy making organ, the Generic Names Supporting 
>> Organization. It is composed of two constituencies, the Noncommercial 
>> Users Constituency (http://ncuc.org <http://ncuc.org/>) and the 
>> Non-Profit Operational Constituencies (http://www.npoc.org 
>> <http://www.npoc.org/>)
>>
>> ----------end of statement-------
>>
>>
>> <Preview.pdf>_______________________________________________
>> PC-NCSG mailing list
>> PC-NCSG at ipjustice.org <mailto:PC-NCSG at ipjustice.org>
>> http://mailman.ipjustice.org/listinfo/pc-ncsg
>

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