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

[Christopher Wilkinson]

Dear Markus:

Thankyou and the ISOC staff for this. I am generally comfortable with  
the draft ISOC response to the the Further Notice of Inquiry.

I have three specific comments:

1.	The draft ISOC response is silent as to whether ICANN should  
continue to be the contractor. Although this may be advisable for  
formal reasons, I think it should be understood that it would be  
materially impossible for a different contractor to fulfill the  
requirements regarding multistakeholder process and the development of  
associated policies. I have addressed this aspect in my earlier  
submission to NTIA.

2.	I am not convinced that it is necessary or helpful to emphasise the  
"equal importance" of the separate IANA functions, providing that they  
are kept together in a single entity. In my experience, the  
overwhelming attention of the affected stakeholders indeed relates to  
the DNS component.

3.	I am rather troubled by ambiguities arising from expressions such  
as "materially affected parties", "non-materially affected  
stakeholders", "materially concerned parties" etc. Who decides which  
is who and who is which?

	Also, I would not "single out" the Internet technical community  
(however defined) in this context because that would be unnecessary in  
a multistakeholder process, and would invite other communities to  
require the same privilege, notably the ccTLD community and the  
governments. (Indeed, the GAC early addressed the relationships  
between IANA, ccTLDs and their governments, and presumably continues  
to take and interest in this area.)

I trust that you and your colleagues will find these comments useful  
and will be able to take them into account.

Regards,

Christopher.



On 18 Jul 2011, at 11:17, Markus Kummer wrote:

>
> 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
>
>
> <FNOI.ISOC_response. DRAFT.pdf>
>
>
> Markus Kummer	
> Vice President, Public Policy
> Internet Society, Geneva
> Email: kummer at isoc.org		
> www.isoc.org
>
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