ICANN Accountability Draft Proposal Would Transfer NTIA Oversight to Community Stakeholders, Group Leaders Say
The ICANN cross-community working group on ICANN accountability’s (CCWG-Accountability) draft accountability proposal is meant to take ICANN oversight powers that have traditionally been in the NTIA’s bailiwick and “hand them over” to ICANN community stakeholders, said CCWG-Accountability Co-Chairman Thomas Richert during an ICANN webinar Monday. The CCWG-Accountability proposal, released last week, is being developed in concert with work at the ICANN Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) stewardship working group (CWG-Stewardship) on an IANA transition plan (see 1505060067). The current CCWG-Accountability draft proposal doesn’t reflect the full working group consensus, which CCWG-Accountability Co-Chair Mathieu Weill also noted during the webinar.
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CCWG-Accountability released its draft proposal without group consensus now because it felt it was “the right time” to get ICANN community feedback on its current ideas, Weill said. Comments on the draft proposal are due June 3. The powers outlined in the current draft proposal reflect CCWG-Accountability consultations with members of the ICANN community last year, said Jordan Carter, CCWG-Accountability rapporteur for the accountability proposal’s first phase. A second phase will focus on ICANN accountability topics that will have a timeline that extends beyond the expected timeline for the IANA transition. “We didn’t invent these powers,” Carter said. “We didn’t think of them out of thin air.”
CCWG-Accountability developed many of the proposed accountability recommendations based on the premise that the group wanted to prevent ICANN from experiencing “mission creep” once NTIA no longer had oversight of its activities, Richert said. Proposed recommendations include giving ICANN community members the ability to recall the ICANN board or remove individual board members, veto changes to the ICANN bylaws and other “fundamental” values documents, and reject board decisions on ICANN’s strategic plan and budget. Fundamental ICANN documents would be far harder to amend, requiring a supermajority vote of 75 percent of the ICANN board and 75 percent of voting community members. Requiring a supermajority vote on changing fundamental documents “ensures they are well established,” Richert said. A 75 percent vote is also required for recalling the ICANN board or individual board members.
ICANN’s current work on its IANA transition plan is set to come under scrutiny as part of two U.S. House hearings Wednesday (see 1505070037), though it's expected to be more of the focus at a 2 p.m. Communications Subcommittee hearing that will concurrently examine the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-805), which would prohibit ICANN from completing the IANA transition until the GAO concludes a study of the plan (see 1502100049). NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco will be one of five industry stakeholders to testify at the House Communications hearing, the subcommittee said Monday. Other witnesses will include: New America’s Open Technology Institute Senior Policy Analyst Danielle Kehl, Intel Director-Global Cybersecurity and Internet Governance Policy Audrey Plonk, Center for Democracy and Technology Director-Global Internet Policy and Human Rights Project Matthew Shears and Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow-International Regulatory Affairs Brett Schaefer.