Re: [soac-mapo] On "universal resolvability" and useful questions that emerged yesterday

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

On 31 Aug 2010, at 15:15, Milton L Mueller wrote:

> However, as I argued yesterday on the call, I hope you forget about the 
> “panel of experts.” There is very little “expertise” to come into play here, 
> it is mainly about values. The Board should be directly and unambiguously 
> responsible for any censorship of TLDs, and its decisions doing so must 
> surmount a supermajority requirement.


Yesterday I thought I was in favor of the Board being the final arbtrar.  Now I 
have concerns.

What controls the board in many cases, after their duty to do the right thing, 
is their fear of being sued.  But since the basis for a suit is determined by 
US and California law, this makes the US law, and its prejudices, the driving 
condition. This leaves a gap for any country or issue that is not US.

For example things that might be barred by the US terrorism rules might be 
perfectly reasonable TLDS.

Having an external review committee that made its recommendation to the Board 
might be a remedy for this.  If this were international hyper respected jurists 
giving a recommendation based on the ICANN guidelines, while just an opinion 
with all the subjectivity that might have, it gives the Board something beyond 
US law to base their vote on.

So I guess I am recommending we consider belt and suspenders for those who will 
be making the decisions.

Putting all the recommendations together perhaps something like:

- Anthony's rework of the wording
- Jothan's sieve
- AGv04 review panel
- Milton's Board is the decider
- Bertrand's recommendation of an appeal mechanism
  pending question: the standard non binding reviews or something else?

a.