CircleID

The UN Secretary-General has been invited to "convene a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue." Everyone can see his/her hearts' desires in the WSIS deal: ICANN can believe that it has survived for another day; governments can believe that they will have "an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance"; and there will be an enormous meeting in Greece by the second quarter of 2006 to start the Internet Governance Forum going.

Here's the "oversight" paragraph:

77. The IGF [Internet Governance Forum] would have no oversight function and would not replace existing arrangements, mechanisms, institutions or organisations, but would involve them and take advantage of their expertise. It would be constituted as a neutral, non-duplicative and non-binding process. It would have no involvement in day-to-day or technical operations of the Internet.

ICANN needs to strengthen its legitimacy so that it is apparent to the world that ICANN doesn't need oversight from a UN body or any other multi-government institution. This will take a lot of work — we're barely at the beginning. I'm focused on paying attention to the steps that are necessary to get there. 

By Susan Crawford, Professor, Cardozo Law School in New York City. Visit the blog maintained by Susan Crawford here.

Related topics: DNS, ICANN, Internet Governance