[IANAOversight] Fwd: [CWG-Stewardship] Strickling Remarks from 4 December re IANA Transition and Accountability

Sat Dec 6 05:45:13 UTC 2014

This could be of interest to this community. The crisp needs to get their
acts up.

Cheers!

sent from Google nexus 4
kindly excuse brevity and typos.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Greg Shatan" <gregshatanipc at gmail.com>
Date: 6 Dec 2014 00:43
Subject: [CWG-Stewardship] Strickling Remarks from 4 December re IANA
Transition and Accountability
To: "cwg-stewardship at icann.org" <cwg-stewardship at icann.org>
Cc:

All:

I thought that Larry Strickling's remarks at a seminar yesterday would be
of interest to the group.  Here is the portion of his speech that appears
germane to our work and that of the CWG-Accountability:

I will finish up by addressing the challenges and opportunities facing us
in 2015 with respect to Internet policy.  Our core mission at NTIA is to
ensure that the Internet remains an engine for economic growth, innovation
and free expression.

Internationally, the United States has been a vocal advocate of the
bottom-up, consensus-based approach to Internet governance known as the
multistakeholder model.

The multistakeholder model has enabled the Internet to develop into an
engine for innovation, free speech and economic growth.  Under this model,
all stakeholders, whether they be from industry, civil society, or
government, come together in an inclusive, transparent, accountable forum
to make decisions and solve problems.  As the Internet agency, NTIA’s job
is to strengthen and promote that model.

In 2014, we have seen a growing acceptance of the multistakeholder model
around the world, but particularly in developing countries.  Earlier this
year, Brazil hosted the successful NetMundial conference, which brought
together a wide range of stakeholders including technical experts, civil
society groups, industry representatives and government officials, all on
an equal footing with each other.  At this meeting not only did
participants agree that Internet governance should be built on democratic
multistakeholder processes,” the entire meeting was a demonstration of the
open, participative, and consensus-driven governance that has allowed the
Internet to develop as an unparalleled engine of economic growth and
innovation.

A month later, a High-Level Panel, headed by the president of Estonia,
Toomas Ilves released a report once again affirming the power of
multistakeholder policy development.  The panel said it “recognizes, fully
supports, and adopts the Internet governance principles produced in the
NetMundial Statement.”

Most recently, at the International Telecommunication Union’s 2014
Plenipotentiary conference in Busan, Korea, last month, we saw the fruits
of all our work to preserve multistakeholder Internet governance.  The
United States achieved all of its objectives in Busan, including keeping
the ITU’s work focused on its current mandate and not expanding its role
into Internet and cybersecurity issues.  The U.S. delegation, led by
Ambassador Danny Sepulveda, successfully built consensus across nations to
protect the robust, innovative, multi-stakeholder Internet we enjoy today.

This validation of the multistakeholder model comes at a critical time.
Last March, NTIA announced its intention to complete the privatization of
the Internet Domain Name System (DNS), currently managed by the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).  This process began in
1998, when ICANN took over important technical functions related to the
domain name system, known as the IANA functions, under a contract with
NTIA.  In our March announcement, NTIA asked ICANN to convene a
multistakeholder process to develop a proposal to transition the U.S.
stewardship role over the IANA functions to the international community. We
did this to ensure that the multistakeholder model for DNS coordination
continues.

When we announced this transition, we outlined some specific conditions
that must be addressed before this transition takes place.  First, the
proposal must support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet
governance, in that it should be developed by the multistakeholder
community and have broad community support.  More specifically, we will not
accept a transition proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a
government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.  Second, the
proposal must maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the
domain name system.  Third, it must meet the needs and expectations of the
global customers and partners of the IANA services.  And finally, it must
maintain the openness of the Internet.

Now that we are eight months past our IANA announcement, it is important to
take stock of where this transition stands.

We are pleased that the community has responded enthusiastically to our
call to develop a transition plan that will ensure the stability, security
and openness of the Internet.  Acting as a facilitator, ICANN announced
this summer the formation of a group representing more than a dozen
Internet stakeholder communities that will help develop a transition
proposal.  As set forth in its charter, the IANA Stewardship Transition
Coordination Group is “conduct[ing] itself transparently, consult[ing] with
a broad range of stakeholders, and ensur[ing] that its proposals support
the security and stability of the IANA functions.”

The community is in the process of developing proposals for the specific
IANA functions.  Earlier this week, a working group focused on domain names
released a 100-page proposal for community review and comment.  We expect
proposals for other of the functions to surface over the next month or so.
The community hopes to submit its transition proposal to NTIA by the end of
next July, which would allow us to review the proposal before the current
contract expires at the end of September 2015.  I want to emphasize that we
did not set a deadline for this transition.  If for some reason the
community needs more time, we have the option to extend the current
contract for up to four years.

ICANN has also launched a process to examine how to ensure it remains
accountable to the global Internet community.  Specifically, this process
will examine how ICANN can strengthen its accountability mechanisms to
address the absence of its historical contractual relationship with NTIA.
NTIA believes that this accountability process needs to include the stress
testing of solutions to safeguard against future contingencies such as
attempts to influence or takeover ICANN functions that are not currently
possible with the IANA functions contract in place.

The two work streams on the IANA transition and enhanced accountability are
directly linked and NTIA has repeatedly said that both issues must be
addressed before any transition takes place.

I am confident that engaging the global Internet community to work out
these important issues will strengthen the multistakeholder process and
will result in ICANN’s becoming even more directly accountable to the
customers of the IANA functions and to the broader Internet community.

Getting the transition right will be a major project for NTIA in 2015.
The full remarks are at:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speechtestimony/2014/remarks-assistant-secretary-strickling-plifcba-telecommunications-policy-regula

An article about these remarks by Kieren McCarty in the Register is at:
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/05/us_government_tells_icann_no_accountability_no_iana/
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/05/us_government_tells_icann_no_accountability_no_iana/>

Greg

*Gregory S. Shatan **ï* *Abelman Frayne & Schwab*

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*Direct*  212-885-9253 *| **Main* 212-949-9022

*Fax*  212-949-9190 *|* *Cell *917-816-6428

*gsshatan at lawabel.com <gsshatan at lawabel.com>*

*ICANN-related: gregshatanipc at gmail.com <gregshatanipc at gmail.com> *

*www.lawabel.com <http://www.lawabel.com/>*

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