Re: [spam] Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] Milestone report update

[Andrew Mack <amack@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

I think it would be wise to revert to our original point of departure.

As Rafik said, the idea was to avoid supporting an application that
would/should in normal circumstances be a government responsibility.  Based
on my experience national and large state/province governments -- no matter
how poor the country -- do have resources.

Eric brings up a good point.  Not all potential government or para-statal
applicants are equal.  Some sub-national groups might qualify as needy under
most definitions.  Cintra's point about harmonizing with other GAC efforts
is also valid.

That said, its clear that we don't have a real definition of what it would
mean to be a "needy government".  Perhaps we can ask our GAC representatives
who are proposing the idea to help us here by suggesting what the criteria
might be.

I myself can see this being a really messy can of worms, since many
governments are needy (to the extent they are) as a result of bad management
or worse, I'd be concerned if we were presented an application from the
Mugabe government in Zimbabwe for example.

Anyway, Tracy, did your side have any ideas of criteria that might make
sense?

Thanks, Andrew



On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Eric Brunner-Williams <
ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> Tijani,
>
> My participation in ICANN-40 was via remote, and the available bandwidth
> and name resolution* was not as condusive to remote participation as it was
> during the Nairobi meeting, for reasons unrelated to the venue network
> provider, or the venue regional network infrastructure. I did not
> participate in the meeting of those physically present at ICANN-40, and so
> the basis for the exchange of views between you and co-chair Rafik is not
> directly known to me.
>
> I write because in reading your note one phrase caught my attention. It is
> this:
>
>
>  I am personally against specific treatment for governmental para-statal
>> applications as they have more channels and possibilities to get funding
>> from several sources compared to NGO for example.
>>
>
> I've been reading the literature on the abilities of Tribal Governments (in
> the United States) to issue bonds, and the conclusion I'm coming to is that
> there is a qualitative difference between the abilities of governments
> inferior to the federal government, from sewer districts to municipalities
> to states and trans-state regions, and Federally Recognized Indian Tribes (a
> term of art in US law), and that this difference is quantitatively
> sufficient to support the thesis that Federally Recognized Indian Tribes
> generally, though situated interior to a highly developed national economy,
> which includes highly developed tax exempt public and non-exempt private
> means of financing the normal activities of government, lack, by the express
> intent of the surrounding national government, meaningful access to those
> means of financing the normal activities of government.
>
> Sorry for the long sentence. In short form, tribal governments are barred
> from issuing tax exempt bonds, for the range of activities that non-tribal
> governments are allowed, and so have fewer means of financing a .tribe than
> any city has of financing a .city. Again, this is all US specific, and I'll
> post a paper on the subject in April.
>
> I've no idea if a similar situation exists in Canada, or Mexico, or
> elsewhere in the Americas, or if similar tax constructs or more general
> rights and privileges available to polities arising from the colonial
> enterprise are not available to surviving pre-existing polities.
>
> My point I suppose is that on average, surviving pre-colonial governments
> are likely to have lesser, rather than greater, access to capital, than
> post-colonial NGOs.
>
> Eric
>
> * The TimeWarner nameservers for central New York failed several times
> during the week of ICANN-40, on two occasions for several hours. This had
> the effect of making the web interface for remote participation unreachable,
> leaving only the skype (doesn't use DNS) communications channels as reliable
> means of communication.
>
> TimeWarner nameservice and routing in central New York also failed during
> the composition of this note.
>



-- 
*
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***Andrew A. Mack
**Principal
*AMGlobal Consulting

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