IANA Transition Standoff: ICANN Board neither supports the Single Member Model nor its alternative, the Designator model

The ICANN Boards Penchant for maintaining its status quo on power has triggered another multistakeholder storm after rejecting the second option of the Designator model.This is after rejecting the proposed Single Member Model (SMM or CMSM).

In an email to the CCWG-Accountability mail list on Monday evening, October 5, 2015, just hours before a scheduled CCWG-Accountability meeting, ICANN Board Chair Steve Crocker announced that the ICANN Board of Directors’ “concerns on the Sole Member model [also] still apply to a Designator model”–meaning that the ICANN Board would not support either the CCWG’s proposed Single Member Model (SMM or CMSM) nor its alternative, the Designator model.

The email irked the CCWG members who have voiced their immediate and long term concerns, here are a few of them

“The Board has abused its role as a decision-maker in this process. In effect, it has sought to replace the open, public, deliberative proposal development process with its own definition of what the community requires, and its own solution that can deliver its evaluation of those requirements…..In doing so, it has profoundly challenged the legitimacy of the multi-stakeholder model of decision-making that ICANN and its Board claim to uphold.” started Jordan Carter

Robin Gross expressed shock and disappointment saying “I suppose it is the natural reaction of any entity that holds total power and risks losing some of that power to behave in such a way, but it does show that ICANN has not matured sufficiently to be cut lose from oversight any time soon. Truly saddening.”

Paul Rosenzweig opined that “the Board is demonstrably speaking with situational particularity.  Perhaps it is time we think about selecting different Board members in the next round of elections”

Siblings of UN?

“And with the Board stating that ICANN is not representative, we are sending a strong message to the UN and all of those who think that the UN system is the proper place for names and number governance. I wonder whether in the process of killing membership with this argument, and argument I disagree with, the board has begun to undercut ICANN’s viability in the international arena. Was this action in keeping with its fiduciary responsibilities?…” wondered Arvi Doria

“If the Board believes that either or both of those models does so it would seem appropriate to provide the required detailed rationale and start the dialogue. If it does not, then it seems quite inappropriate and non-constructive for ICANN Counsel to raise a purported threat to the global public interest in their memoranda.” Says Phil Corwin

Kieren McCarthy touching on the ICANN NOMCOM concluded “The fact that the NomCom exists at all is a sign that ICANN has not matured to the point where it can do what thousands of other organizations achieve every year: open elections with selections made by the whole community rather than a secretive subset of community members who lobby extremely hard to be selected.

Visit the email thread: Message from ICANN Board re Designator Model