IGF 2014

In 2009, ICANN entered into an Affirmation of Commitments (AOC) with the US Department of Commerce (DOC). The AOC promotes ICANN’s accountability to the global Internet community, e.g. through a system of multistakeholder reviews of its performance in relation to public interest criteria. But it also moderated rather than ended the exclusive relationship between ICANN and the DOC, and affirmed ICANN’s commitment to remain a nonprofit corporation headquartered in the US with offices around the world. Now, with ICANN’s accelerating globalization efforts and the DOC’s announced desire to transition its role regarding the IANA functions to the global multistakeholder community, new and pressing questions are being raised about the AOC and its potential alternatives.

The NonCommercial Users Constituency of ICANN (94 civil society organizations and 252 individuals in 81 countries) proposes this workshop to explore some of these questions. Should the bilateral relationship be replaced by a “Web of Affirmation of Commitments” between ICANN and the world’s governments and relevant nongovernmental actors, as advocated by an ICANN Strategy Panel? Could the US role simply be removed from the equation, rather than being replaced by formal agreements with other parties? Would another arrangement better promote globalization and multistakeholderism while preserving the security, stability and unity of the Internet? How far can ICANN’s globalization be advanced while preserving ICANN’s legal status and nexus of contractual relationships? Could the innovative AOC serve as a model for other global Internet governance issue-areas? The workshop would bring together architects of the AOC with other leading proponents of ICANN’s globalization.