Korea Internet Governance Alliance(KIGA)’s Comments on the Second Draft Report of the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability

Sep. 11th,2015

Korea Internet Governance Alliance(KIGA) feels that the ‘Second Draft Report of the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG)’ incorporates several measures that can adequately enhance ICANN’s accountability under the currently proposed suggestions for transferring the IANA stewardship to the global multistakeholder community. We see this as an encouraging sign heralding the successful transfer of the IANA stewardship and would like to submit our comments of general support for the report while addressing concerns regarding a few minor issues.

We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the members and participants of the CCWG for their devotion and attention to detail in coming up with this proposal.

The followings are our comments on the second draft proposal:

1. We support the general framework for enhancing ICANN’s accountability in the ‘Second Draft Report of the CCWG on Enhancing ICANN’s Accountability’.

2. We support the proposed empowered community mechanism of granting more governance powers to the multistakeholder community based on our evaluation that this would generally be an adequate mechanism to replace the backstop that the historic relationship with the U.S. Government provided.

3. We believe that the CCWG proposal is a significant leap forward towards an enhanced multistakeholder model by granting the community the following powers in particular;

ⓛ Reconsider/reject budget or strategic/operating plan
② Reconsider/reject changes to ICANN standard bylaws
③ Approve changes to Fundamental bylaws
④ Remove individual ICANN board directors
⑤ Recall entire ICANN board

3. We generally support the ‘equal power for all the SOs and ACs’ principle applied in the draft report for the composition of the ‘Community Mechanism as Sole Member (CMSM)’. We feel that this would address the issue of a truly multistakeholder participation by all SOs and ACs.

However, we feel that a detailed description of the composition and internal decision making procedures of each of the SOs and ACs regarding the actual exercise of power is needed before the completion of the IANA transition.

4. Lastly, we need to continue to encourage and support the participation of developing countries and relatively marginalized stakeholders in the global internet policy making.

Korea Internet Governance Alliance(KIGA) notes that there are issues such as enhancing government participation and considering the issue of jurisdiction that still need to be addressed. We intend to continue participating and contributing to discussion on CCWG-Accountability's Work Stream 2.

Thank you.

The following issue was raised by some members of KIGA but was not able to reach consensus among members.

1. The current proposal suggests the equal power to all SOs and ACs. We believe that it is a good indication of supporting all the stakeholders to participate in the decision making but there must be more discussion on whether equal power distribution is appropriate.


< IANA Transition Working Group Members of KIGA>

◆ Boknam Yun(HankyulLawGroup)
◆ Dongman Lee(KAIST, Korea Institute of Science and Technology)
◆ Young-eum Lee(ICANN ccNSO Council Member, Korea National Open University)
◆ Byong-il Oh(Korea Progressive Network Jinbonet)
◆ Eungjun Jeon(YouMePatent&LawFirm)
◆ Kishik Park(ETRI, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)
◆ Minsoo Lee(Gabia, Registrar)
◆ Insook Kim(Korea Consumer Agency)
◆ Sunyoung Han(Konkuk University)
◆ Kyungran Kang(Ajou University)
◆ Jaechul Sir(KISA, Korea Internet & Security Agency)
◆ Kuk Kim(Seokyeong University)
◆ Hyeyoung Kang(KISA, Korea Internet & Security Agency)
◆ Minjung Park(KISA, Korea Internet & Security Agency)
◆ Boyoung Kim(KISA, Korea Internet & Security Agency)