| Clarifications on the paper "ITU and ICANN Reform" |
Richard Hill, 25 July 2002
- Introduction
The Director of the ITU's Telecommunications Standardization Bureau (TSB), Mr Houlin Zhao, has published
a paper
on ITU and ICANN Reform1. That paper has been discussed in a number of forums, in particular ITU's Council,
ITU-T Study Group 2, the ITU-T Telecommunications Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), and ICANN's Government
Advisory Committee (GAC).
The purpose of this paper is to clarify some issues that have been raised in the course of those discussions.
- Status of the Paper
The paper was originally written by Mr Zhao after informal consultations with ITU members (both Member States and Sector Members). It has subsequently been formally discussed within ITU. ITU Member States unanimously support Mr Zhao's initiative in proposing to increase cooperation with ICANN in order to help ICANN to overcome the difficulties noted by Mr Stuart Lynn when he called for ICANN reform. However, there is no consensus among Member States with respect to the best ways for ITU to increase its cooperation.
- Absence of Specific Proposals
It has been noted that Mr Zhao's paper outlines some general areas where increased cooperation with ICANN
could be mutually beneficial, but that it does not provide details or specifics.
The lack of detail and specificity is a direct consequence of ITU's recognition that it can do no more than
to offer assistance: specific requests should come from ICANN or be raised during the discussions of reform,
and the details would have to be agreed and approved through the normal consultation and decision-making
processes of both organizations.
- ITU's Membership
It has been stated that ITU's membership does not include many of the key players in the Internet.
The full list of ITU Sector Members is available at http://www.itu.int/members/index.html.
It can be seen that this includes most of the large equipment manufacturers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
It is, however, correct that small ISPs and the ccTLD operators are not currently ITU members. If ITU were to cooperate
more closely with ICANN, these organizations could consider becoming ITU-T Sector Members
or Associate Members
2, if that were considered appropriate.
In general, increased representation in ITU of Internet players would go together with increased cooperation
between ICANN and ITU, and ICANN and Internet players could take advantage of the efficient, effective, open,
transparent, bottoms-up, consensus-based, international working environment of ITU.
- Analogies with Telephony
Mr Zhao's paper draws some analogies to telephone networks. These have been criticized, on the grounds
that telephony is, and has always been, regulated, and because there are technical differences between
IP-based networks and telephone networks.
The statement that telephony has always been regulated is not correct. Telephony, like any new
telecommunications technology, was not regulated when it was first invented and deployed. Regulation
at a national level was imposed as the technology became mature and was felt to be a critical infrastructure
of public interest.
Coordination at an international level was later felt to be desirable, and certain specific coordination tasks
were assigned to the predecessors of ITU-T on a voluntary, consensus basis. The ITU-T is not in any way a global
regulator, nor does it impose any sorts of contractual terms and conditions on the private operators who provide
national or international telecommunications services.
Furthermore, deregulation of telephony, and of telecommunications in general, has either taken place or
is planned in all developed and many developing countries. The ITU's Development Sector (ITU-D) provides
information and assistance to developing countries who are engaged in a process of privatization and
deregulation of former state-owned telecommunications monopolies.
With respect to the technical issues, while it is true that there are many differences between IP-based networks
and telephone networks, there are also some similarities, in particular with respect to the processes that apply
to the areas for discussion outlined in Mr Zhao's paper. The similarities were not explored in detail in Mr Zhao's
paper because the intent of the paper was to suggest that it would be productive for all parties if ICANN and ITU
were to engage in open discussions on these matters.
- Governments and Public Policy Issues
In the context of ICANN Reform, the question has been asked "which governments should be involved when ICANN
makes decisions that have public policy implications?" From ITU's perspective, this elicits the following comments:
- The Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) between the Deparment of Commerce (DoC) of the United States of America (USA)
3
and ICANN does not give ICANN a mandate to "make decisions that have public policy implications". A recent restatement
of US policy is4: "[the DoC] believes ICANN's efforts should be focused around coordination of the core technical and
directly related policy areas initially set forth in the Department's 1998 Statement of Policy. We agree with the majority
of stakeholders that ICANN's mission must 'stay narrow.' ICANN is not, and should not become, the 'government of the Internet.'"
- The ITU is not aware of any government that has given to ICANN a mandate to "make decisions that have public
policy implications". It is worth noting that ITU-T itself has no mandate to make binding decisions, and that ITU-T's
mandate is restricted to matters which are not national matters (for example, competition policies, data privacy,
consumer protection, anti-trust matters, and so forth would typically be considered national matters within ITU-T).
- Given the widespread use of Internet around the world, and its growing importance for the economies of most,
if not all, countries, the ITU believes that all of the world's governments would have to be involved if a mandate
to "make decisions that have public policy implications" were to be agreed.
1 http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/itut-icann/index.html
2 See http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/membership/index.html and
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/membership/associates.html
3 http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/icann-memorandum.htm
4 http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/congress/2002/icann6122002.htm
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