ICANN Wants To End Commerce Dept. Oversight In 2009

Ian Lamont writes "ICANN's current Joint Project Agreement with the US Commerce Department is set to expire in September of 2009, and ICANN wants to become more autonomous and switch to a global governance model, says ICANN's executive officer. The agreement between the nonprofit ICANN and the Commerce Department has been in place since 1998, and was renewed in 2006 despite international protests. A few US-based groups named in the article — including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the trade group TechNet and a conservative think tank iGrowthGlobal — would like the agreement with the Commerce Department to continue, in part to provide 'accountability.' The ICANN officer quoted in the article says expiration of the Commerce Department agreement would not remove accountability, as ICANN still has a contract with the US to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and must follow California law governing nonprofits. The Register is running a related story about why some people are uncomfortable with the United States' influence on ICANN. We discussed ICANN's request for independence a few months ago."

Comments

Re:Accountability

[hey!]

The problem is that the UN lacks an army of its own and the will to enforce its own edicts, probably because there are so many nations with so many conflicting interests with so many ways for a single nation to gum up the works.

Which of course is entirely intentional. The League of Nations failed miserably at averting war, of course. The UN embodies the lessons of the League of Nations which is -- don't bother trying.

If the UN were about ending war, it'd have to be a world government with an army. But it's not. It just reduces the number, size and scope of wars, and by trying less hard, it succeeds more often.

The way the UN does this is by ratifying the imposition of the strong upon the weak, which is going to happen anyway. Thats why there are permanent security council members with a veto. Say you are superpower and you want some small country to do something or else. If you really want to do it, the security council can't stop you, because you've got a veto. But the other countries on the security council will be pissed at you, and you want things from them like having them lower barriers to your country's goods, or their support on some treaty or another. So you think twice about whether it's really worth your while. If you're smart that is. If you're really incredibly stupid, you believe your own rhetoric about how the UN is encroaching on your Liebensraum, which means you end up shooting yourself in the foot.

Contrarywise, lets say the rest of the security council is cool with your invading the little country to get what you want from them. Its like Koko says in the Mikado; it's all over for them, and the actual execution is a mere formality that, on balance, everybody would rather forgo.

An organization like the UN is exactly what is wanted here. But not the UN. It's too much of a political punching bag already. So you make another international organization that pretty much runs the same way: it appears to be for fairness, but really it just slows down rash actions enough so they can be reconsidered in terms of enlightened self interest.

Re:Accountability

[religious freak]

Wow, well said! One of the best quotes I've heard re the UN:

The UN was not designed to deliver us to paradise - rather to save us from hell.

I think that is a perfect description of what the UN does.