Hopes High for Consensus on ICANN Accountability Proposal

CCWG-Accountability recessed at ICANN 53 with two enforcement models still under consideration. The member model would allow ICANN community to enforce new powers via an arbitrator or a court proceeding, and the designator model would exclude the community from using courts as an enforcement mechanism. Both models would give advisory committees (ACs) and supporting organizations (SOs) access to proposed enhanced community powers, but only the member model would allow them to gain full ICANN member status. Although CCWG-Accountability reached consensus on new community powers as a check on ICANN board decisions, failure to achieve consensus on an enforcement model could further slow progress on the group's work, members said Thursday. CCWG-Accountability's eventual proposal is widely seen as an important component of parallel ICANN stakeholder work on a plan for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition.

Work on the IANA transition is “tiring, sometimes contentious, perhaps exasperating,” said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling during the IGF-USA event. “No doubt this is not an easy task. But, it is an important one.” Strickling has urged ICANN community stakeholders involved in the IANA transition planning process and the CCWG-Accountability proposal to keep NTIA requirements for a transition plan in mind as they inch closer to delivering their proposals to the federal agency. ICANN CEO Steve Crocker noted that the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group's work combining three community proposals on an IANA transition plan is going smoothly. “Some details need to be knit together” across the three proposals, but “there aren't really many issues that we have great concern about in terms of what that proposal looks like,” he said.

NetChoice CEO Steve DelBianco, a CCWG-Accountability member, told us that he fully expects that the working group will reach a consensus in favor of the member model during the Paris meeting, although “there are a whole lot of other details on what it is we're enforcing that will take longer.” The member model “has significantly greater powers baked in under California law,” giving the ICANN community greater leverage to enforce their new powers, DelBianco said. “That model gave concern to some that once an AC or SO activated its membership, it would acquire the ability to do mischief in court.”

Neustar Deputy General Counsel Becky Burr said during the IGF-USA event that she hopes CCWG-Accountability members will come to the Paris meeting with “an open mind” on the details of the enforcement models. ICANN members previously rejected membership for ACs and SOs in 1999 and 2003, “is an indication it wasn't the right thing then” but shouldn't deter CCWG-Accountability from adopting the model now, Burr said. CCWG-Accountability's greatest hurdle is more likely to be cramming too many accountability changes into the working group's first proposal, Burr said. CCWG-Accountability's first accountability proposal is supposed to cover accountability changes deemed crucial to the IANA transition, with the working group set to consider additional accountability work via a second work stream. “We've got to get it right,” she said.

The enforcement model issue has been a turbulent area for CCWG-Accountability, but “even there we're pretty close” to a decision, said Matthew Shears, Center for Democracy & Technology director-Global Internet Policy and Human Rights Project. “We're talking about two models that aren't that different” beyond access to courts as an enforcement mechanism, he said. The debate over enforcement may ultimately prove beneficial for CCWG-Accountability's final proposal, said House Commerce Committee Majority Counsel David Redl. Having the community “duke it out” will ultimately produce a better outcome and shows that the multistakeholder process works, he said.