Political Oversight of ICANN: A Briefing for the WSIS Summit

The Internet Governance Project releases a new paper clarifying the controversies around "oversight" of ICANN. They explain why WSIS must separate discussion of governments' role in setting policy for all Internet issues from discussion of the narrower problem of ICANN's oversight. This is such an important distinction. WGIG tried to do the same, with the division of larger publiuc policy issues in the Forum and Domain name nad numbering in the "Models" but this distinction got lost in the larger controversy. An analysis of the contractual instruments used by the U.S. to supervise ICANN shows how the problem of U.S. unilateral oversight can be addressed in a way that is both politically feasible and avoids threatening the stability or freedom of the Internet. The paper can be downloaded here: http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/Political-Oversight.pdf