Internet Governance Experts Suggest Independent Judicial Body for ICANN, Worry About DNS

Syracuse University Information Studies Professor Milton Mueller cast doubt on the likelihood that the IANA transition could fall under the sway of unilaterally inclined governments, but emphasized the need for the integration of ICANN’s accountability review and the transition process. For IANA stakeholders to have “recourse,” there should be an independent judicial body created for ICANN, said Becky Burr, Neustar chief privacy officer.

"We don’t know what our future role” will be on root zone maintenance within the IANA functions, said Pat Kane, VeriSign senior vice president-naming and directory services. After gathering the requests for root zone changes by ICANN and their approval by NTIA, VeriSign makes the actual changes, he said. If after the transition VeriSign is no longer involved in root zone maintenance, whatever replaces the company “should provide at least as good a job” as that previously provided by VeriSign, he said, saying the company hopes to continue to be involved in the process. VeriSign is “very, very worried about the ongoing security and stability” of the root zone and there needs to be an “external mechanism” to provide oversight of ICANN in their maintenance of the root zone, he said.

The “real battle” over the IANA function is over the Domain Name System (DNS), “where the money is” and “where the policy battles are,” said Mueller, a longtime Internet governance scholar. Not making the transition would only increase the view that the multistakeholder model is “nothing more than a fig leaf for U.S. hegemony,” he said. The risk of an “evil person” taking over the transition or ICANN’s oversight is “extremely small,” he said, saying “nobody backed up” the dissenting governments at NETmundial, last week’s Internet governance conference in Sao Paulo (CD April 23 p19, April 24 p7, April 28 p13, April 29 p9). Mueller expressed concern that ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade framed the “interrelated” nature of the transition and ICANN’s accountability process as a goal and not necessarily a mandate. “They bloody well better” be related, he said. “You can’t give ICANN IANA without knowing what makes them accountable, first,” he said. The transition arrangement should keep the registries “directly involved” with the DNS and decentralize power, by separating the policy issues of IANA from the technical aspects, he said.

"There is no monolithic Internet governance body,” said Neustar’s Burr. ICANN has a “very limited function” in Internet governance, she said. Internet governance needs “little, bridging institutions” that work on “mundane” problems, like naming and addressing functions, she said. If ICANN operates in a vague legal context, hedged between national and international laws, there is “no ability to change course,” she said. Those affected by the IANA transition must “have recourse,” she said. The Internet governance community can’t separate the IANA functions from accountability, nor confuse the transition with Internet governance, or “we'll fail,” said Burr: “We should have an independent judiciary for ICANN” and “empower the creation of Internet law.”

If the proposal’s accountability mechanisms don’t meet NTIA’s standards and the agency rejects the proposals, there will be “howling” from international governments, said Steve DelBianco, NetChoice executive director. Fortunately, there is acknowledgement that the IANA contract is a “way of holding ICANN accountable,” he said. Maintaining ICANN’s multistakeholder reviews could be accomplished using DelBianco’s idea of “stress tests,” said Fiona Alexander, NTIA associate administrator. Alexander said NTIA doesn’t need congressional approval to carry out the transition.