Session
Subtheme
Organizer 1: Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 1: Xiao Zhang, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Milton Mueller, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Mary Uduma, Technical Community, African Group
Speaker 4: Jari Arkko, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 5: Becky Burr, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 6: Hartmut Richard Glaser, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 2: Milton Mueller, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Mary Uduma, Technical Community, African Group
Speaker 4: Jari Arkko, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 5: Becky Burr, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 6: Hartmut Richard Glaser, Technical Community, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Format
Classroom
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: The classroom layout will provide a more equal status for the speakers and the audience, facilitating dynamic interactions and dialogue. It will also allow for a 10 minute opening presentation that will explain the background to the IANA transition. An hour will be needed to fully air some of the complex issues.
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: The classroom layout will provide a more equal status for the speakers and the audience, facilitating dynamic interactions and dialogue. It will also allow for a 10 minute opening presentation that will explain the background to the IANA transition. An hour will be needed to fully air some of the complex issues.
Policy Question(s)
A. Did the IANA transition succeed in internationalizing the governance of the Internet identifier registries?
B. Which stakeholders are satisfied and which are dissatisfied with the outcomes of the IANA transition? What are the reasons?
C. Can the ICANN governance model serve as a model for other forms of digital governance?
What will participants gain from attending this session? In a word, closure. This workshop provides an opportunity to assess the changes made by the IANA transition and relate them to the WSIS+20 process. It recognizes that the transition is a settled fact, which allows discussion to move forward rather than replaying controversies from 20 years ago. The workshop will allow both external critics of ICANN’s governance model and internal participants and supporters of its process to come to a common understanding of what the transition achieved, and to resolve decades of debate on the governance modality of Internet identifiers.
SDGs
Description:
This workshop asks whether the IANA/ICANN transition resolved the controversies around multi-stakeholder vs multilateral governance. The transition, which took place from March 2014 to October 2016, eliminated direct U.S. Commerce Department control of ICANN, improved its accountability mechanisms, and made ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) a formal part of the “empowered community” that holds ICANN’s board accountable. The workshop will evaluate the long-term impact of the IANA transition and assess its implications for the future of WSIS beyond 2025. ICANN was conceived as an innovative governance model for domain names and IP addresses, often described as “multistakeholderism” and sometimes as “policymaking by non-state actors.” ICANN in its early days was controversial for three reasons: 1) it situated policy making authority in a globalized internet community composed of the technical community, business and civil society; 2) ICANN was set up as a contractor of the U.S. government, which gave one government, the USA, unilateral authority over the new institution and approval authority over all changes to the DNS root. 3) ICANN’s accountability mechanisms were weak. Controversies about these issues occupied much of the WSIS process from 2001 - 2005 and continued until 2014. The IANA transition was a major change in global Internet governance. It was a multistakeholder process that allowed critics and supporters of ICANN to advocate and implement reforms. Up to now, there has not been a systematic review of it in the WSIS process. The session will include representatives from the Internet technical community, China, Brazil, the U.S., and business and civil society.
This workshop asks whether the IANA/ICANN transition resolved the controversies around multi-stakeholder vs multilateral governance. The transition, which took place from March 2014 to October 2016, eliminated direct U.S. Commerce Department control of ICANN, improved its accountability mechanisms, and made ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) a formal part of the “empowered community” that holds ICANN’s board accountable. The workshop will evaluate the long-term impact of the IANA transition and assess its implications for the future of WSIS beyond 2025. ICANN was conceived as an innovative governance model for domain names and IP addresses, often described as “multistakeholderism” and sometimes as “policymaking by non-state actors.” ICANN in its early days was controversial for three reasons: 1) it situated policy making authority in a globalized internet community composed of the technical community, business and civil society; 2) ICANN was set up as a contractor of the U.S. government, which gave one government, the USA, unilateral authority over the new institution and approval authority over all changes to the DNS root. 3) ICANN’s accountability mechanisms were weak. Controversies about these issues occupied much of the WSIS process from 2001 - 2005 and continued until 2014. The IANA transition was a major change in global Internet governance. It was a multistakeholder process that allowed critics and supporters of ICANN to advocate and implement reforms. Up to now, there has not been a systematic review of it in the WSIS process. The session will include representatives from the Internet technical community, China, Brazil, the U.S., and business and civil society.
Expected Outcomes
Our hope is that a balanced discussion of the IANA transition will build legitimacy for the governance institutions of the Internet, and pave the way for continued improvement in ICANN's activities.
Hybrid Format: Our organization has extensive experience running hybrid sessions, both at IGF and in our own projects. Well-organized preparation is one of the keys to success. We will use WhatsApp to put all the speakers and organizers into a communication group, allowing for efficient coordination and communication. We will organize a preparatory session a month before the IGF to go through the format and sequence of presentations. The screen will be formatted to show all speakers, both online and onsite, in gallery format. The online and onsite moderators and will alternate taking control of the workshop in a predictable pattern to afford equal opportunity to online and onsite participants.