[Chapter-delegates] ISOC Draft Response to the US Department of Commerce IANA Further Notice of Inquiry

[Markus Kummer]

Dear Chapter Delegates and Members,

I refer to the email I sent out on 19 June, seeking your input for our response to the US Department of Commerce IANA Further Notice of Inquiry (FNOI). Meanwhile, we have had the opportunity to assess the FNOI more in detail and also exchange views with others, including representatives of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). First and foremost, we welcome the open and transparent  process which should ultimately contribute to broadening transparency, predictability and global confidence in the way the Department of Commerce deals with the IANA function.

Nevertheless, we have some areas of concern. In our draft response to the FNOI, which is attached to this email, .we highlight the following areas where we believe further clarifications are needed:

First, the Internet technical community should be recognized as “materially affected parties” to the contract.

Second, the FNOI is “DNS centric”. The DNS component of the IANA Functions Contract  is only one of three IANA functions that are of equal importance to the well-functioning Internet. The Contract  should therefore be drafted in such a way that the full range of IANA functions to be performed by the Contractor are reflected throughout the document and treated as separate functions of equal importance.

Third, the functional separation between the processing of the IANA functions and the development of associated policies needs further clarification. We believe the current wording is too rigid. The IANA staff are sometimes uniquely qualified to provide informed inputs to the policy making process, based on their technical expertise and operational experience. A good policy development process requires informed technical advice from professional staff to understand why a proposed policy may or may not be implementable, or where it could be more effective, if it is put forward in one way rather than another.

Finally, and most importantly, we believe the requirement for the IANA Contractor to document compliance with relevant policies and procedures or, more critically, with relevant national laws, needs to be revisited. To be consistent with the requirement for the functional separation between the processing of the IANA functions and the development of associated policies, it is essential that IANA staff not be required to assess whether or not requests for processing are compliant with relevant policies and procedures, and most certainly not whether they are compliant with relevant national laws.  Compliance is a matter for the policy-making bodies – the ICANN Board, the RIRs through the NRO, and the IETF. The final SOW must make it clear that the IANA Contractor’s staff is responsible only for documenting that the relevant organization has stated that their decision is compliant with policy, procedures and laws, and not for judging the accuracy of such statements.

Please let us know if you have any comments. Any response submitted by 24 July will be considered in the finalization of our response.

Best regards
Markus


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Markus Kummer	 
Vice President, Public Policy
Internet Society, Geneva
Email: kummer at isoc.org		
www.isoc.org