The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> CHAIRMAN: Okay. Good morning. It's 9 o'clock so we will get started. One of our panelists may be still in the queue, but let's get started. We have 90 minutes at our disposal. We have a very big panel. So that will be challenging to make sure that everyone can speak a little bit. We seem to have more panelists than people in the room. We don't talk about audience very early on at the IGF. They're participants. You consider yourself active participants in this session.
Now, it is quite complex multi‑stakeholder governance of the domain name system, lessons learned for other IG issues. The first question ‑‑ one of our panelists is not here yet. Lori Schulman wanted to take on this question, but actually the prep session with panelists showed it may be that we have different views on how we work. So let's see how it goes.
I will not introduce the panelists. I think most people in the room know them all, but I will ask each of them when they take the floor to introduce themselves briefly. As Lori is not here, Keith Drazek volunteered to give it a go on the first question. Please, Keith.
>> KEITH DRAZEK: Good morning, everybody. My name is Keith Drazek. I'm involved in ICANN space stakeholder group. So since most of us in the room are familiar and some of us intimately familiar with ICANN and the sort of the multi‑stakeholder structure within ICANN, I won't spend a lot of time on it, but for those of us watching remotely, I will give a brief overview.
The management of the domain name system within ICANN is set up in a number of different structures. There is primarily the gTLD or the generic top level domain space and the country code name space. Or the CCNSO. The generic name supporting organization and the country code name supporting organization are the policy making bodies within ICANN focusing on the domain name space. Specifically within the generic name space, the GNSO, there are many, many different stakeholders. Within that space, there are two houses within that organization, there are two houses, the contracted party house which is comprised of registries and registrars. It is the wholesalers of domain names, the master database and the registrars are the channel or the retail points of purchase for a domain name. So the contracted party house are those entities that have contracts with ICANN or the sale and management of domain names. The non‑contracted party house includes essentially everyone else which has commercial interests, non‑commercial interests, business, intellectual property, user interests and the range of different participants. And it is ‑‑ I'll just focus specifically on the GNSO for now. The GNSO is sponge for policy making ‑‑ responsible for policy making through a policy making process, which is a process explicitly included in ICANN's bilaws and that is a mechanism by which the community, the broader community can impact the policies around domain names and essentially the contracts that registries and registrars have with ICANN. So it is in a sense one of the grand bargains was that a recognition that the contracted parties registries and registrars in ICANN recognized that through a formal process called a PDP, there is the opportunity for the rest of the community in a multi‑stakeholder engagement to impact the policies, the procedures and essentially the contracts that govern our industry. So this is I think what we're here to talk about today and I think we'll talk about some of the positive experiences, some of the challenges that we've seen and that we currently and continue to see and I look forward to a robust discussion. So, Markus, if there are any questions, I'm happy to take them, but maybe we can move on.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Keith. That was a nice explanation of how it works. (low voice) my apologies. I thought I press the button. I thank Keith for a very succinct presentation. I ask other panelists to add another perspective, but also people participants from the floor are welcome to chime in if they would like to add anything. If not, we don't need to extend ‑‑ yes, Olivia would like to add something. Please.
>> Yes. Thank you. Just to add that the process is open for everyone to take part in, which is particularly important. There is no barrier to participation of this.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I think we have come to that from a newcomers point of view and Grace would like to maybe talk about that at a later stage. We have a video our panelists and she's not able to attend remotely, but she also addresses an issue of newcomers. It is open, but other barriers to enter is in question. Other points? If not, we can move on. We have given a lengthy scenario for our session and I think a centerpiece of that is the transition and that schpeel that is on the website that is perhaps the best example of a policy negotiation with a concrete result being managed by a group of different stakeholders. Many in this room are very active participants in this process, but I would like to call on the mastermind behind the translation, if not the Godfather of the transition. Larry Strickling who is in the position of U.S. government really drove the steak holds are to come to result. Please, Larry, give your take on the transition and also address the question where it can be applied for the governance process piece.
>> LARRY: We're the catalysts in the United States government to get the multi‑stakeholder community to step up, but very quickly, the stakeholders in the community took on that responsibility and organized themselves and conducted what ‑‑ and I do agree with the assessment in the program that this has been the most successful demonstration of a large scale multi‑stakeholder process that has occurred. There is certainly roll representation by many parties, but it was truly the stakeholders that did the work on this and in large part, the role of the United States government after requesting the community to come together. It is really a tribute to the work of stakeholders from all of the various sectors of the Internet economy that delivered the transition plan both for the technical functions as well as the larger scale in scope accountability work that the community sought to do. In fact, it's interesting to note that at the time of the ‑‑ we announced the intent to go forward with the transition in 2014. The United States government did not even ask at that time for the accountability work, but it very quickly within weeks, the stepped up and said it needs to be attention given to the accountability issues. We quickly embrace that and felt that that was important to allow the community to go forward with that piece of it. But that was something that was generated by the community and not by us in the United States government. So again, there are lots of veterans of that effort sitting in the audience. So I don't need to belabor it and others may need to comment on it in terms of what they found critical and important in the effort. We're now in 2017, almost 2018. It's been a year now since the transition occurred and the question is: How do we take that success of the multi‑stakeholder approach and the demonstration it made for the two years it was involved in developing the transition plan. And look to expand that process. The ICANN structure while complicated as Keith pointed out I think still comes down to some basic concepts. And all of these, I think, are characteristic of an appropriate stakeholder approach to solving problems. Needs to be stakeholder driven and I think as I just said the bringing in the accountability issues into the IANA transition is something that was very much stakeholder driven. The other general concepts that you want to see applied to anything is the need for openness. Openness in terms of conducting the proceedings, but also in terms of allowing participation by any interested party. Another hallmark of multi‑stakeholder approaches, the successful ones is the transparency so that people can see what is being discussed. I can't remember the statistics any longer. I used to be able to spout them off at the drop of a hat in terms of the thousands of e‑mails that went on to list during the IANA transition, the number of conference calls that were all dually recorded and archived, the public meetings that were held on it. I see Steve laughing as he's probably one of the few people who read every one of those e‑mails. But that's very important in terms of giving people the confidence that the process is truly an open one and is respectful of the view points of all parties. And then what's absolutely critical in all this is that the need for the outcomes to be consensus based. Now, consensus can take a variety of definitions, but at the end of the day, it's important that the group that's working come to some sense of consensus in their own minds as a way of validating and moving forward. So these are I think universal concepts. They're clearly present in the ICANN model, but I think they have more general applicability. So the question that Mark has put to us: Hour do we go forward and take the learnings of the IANA transition to do more with multi‑stakeholder approaches is something I personally have spent a lot of time here in the last six months through the Internet Society. We conducted a feasibility study of creating a more general capability or platform within which to conduct multi‑stakeholder discussions. There is today outside of this specialized organizations like ICANN and IETF and the regional practices that practice as part of their DNA. There really is no center in the world where these concepts are practiced and made available to communities at large. We looked at the feasibility of doing that. Our study which was published at the end of October concluded after 150 interviews many of which were of people here in the room that creating such a capability is absolute feasible. In fact, there is a need for this in the Internet space. I'm pleased that the Internet Society board has agreed to fund this project on a pilot BASIS next year so that we can actually prove out exactly how one could go about developing these capabilities to bring people together. So we can talk more about the specifics of that, but I think it's time to move on to some other panelists what their thoughts on this.
>> Yes. Well, thank you, Keith. Lori has arrived. She was held in the queue unfortunately. So she's a bit late and there's no room on the panel for her. So we apologize for that. Are there any ‑‑ the thing is the chairs her ‑‑ there's one. Okay. Are there any comments, questions to Larry? Yes, please, Matthew.
>> MATTHEW SHEARS: Thanks, Markus. I would like to build a little bit on what Larry said. In addition to being the importance of these characteristics of the multi‑stakeholder model, there are some very important operational and buy in methods that can be taken into account from multi‑stakeholders for the accounts to be successful. It goes without saying it is obvious that it was a multi‑stakeholder process in the first place. ICANN is a multi‑stakeholder space. There is great familiarity with those processees and this is not necessarily the case elsewhere. It is some what of a lack of understanding and a lack of understanding with the complex rights in particular of the multi‑stakeholder model that needs to be best explained well it comes to looking at that model and interpreting it or placing it into different context. The other key factor that made it a success was that there were agreed operating principles and procedures. ICANN has a process where it drafts a charter. In that charter the goals, the leadership, the decision making of when the process will be closed and that clarity of purpose and procedure is incredibly important to the multi‑stakeholder approach. The other one is the issue of common cause and what was clear in the transition is that the common cause was to effect the transition. But behind that were a number of guiding elements. NTA placed on the process. The other one was the desire to see greater account ant within ICANN. And that really drove the community as a whole. What it did is enable, if you will, the subordination of the particular interests of the various parts of the community to the greater goal of seeing the transition occur. That's how multi‑sting holder processees can succeed. But it is not just the characteristics. It is procedures and policies you surround them with. Thanks.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that. Yes, Lori. Please.
>> LORI SCHULMAN: Good morning. I apologize for being late. I will blame security for that one. I wanted to add for the process that Matthew described and Keith described. What makes the multi‑stakeholder process work in terms of getting to a good compromise because it is all about compromise and I don't know if that word has been used today. If you stay entrenched in the process, the process can't work because it is consensus driven and then once you have that consensus, there is an implementing trigger and that is the ICANN contracts. So when we talk about how the system works, it is important to remember that at the end of the day, there is an implementation mechanism already built in. I know on the side ‑‑ did you talk about the five constituencies? I come from the generic name supporting organization. Within our organization it is split as well in between contracted parties and non‑contracted parties. At times, the interests are quite at odds and at times the interests are quite aligned. But the compromise word is that the underpinning of all that we do and I think it is very important to stress that as we talk about bringing this model to other problems. That the IANA transition in my view was a big compromise on many, many levels. There is still a lot of unanswered questions, open questions of how the system will work particularly when it's tested, particularly when there might be a moment that the community decides a budget is not a budget and rejects the budget or if there's an action upon the board that would somehow cause the community to question whether that board member or the board in its entirety should remain seated. All of these processees were negotiated as part of a grand compromise for a stakeholder model.
>> Thank you, Markus and thank you, Lori. I would like to agree wholeheartedly with Lori and her comments about the compromise and how important compromise is to everything that we do on a multi‑stakeholder engagement. I would just add one of the side benefits I think from the IANA transition and the ICANN accountant processees that took several years. It helped to break down some of the silos that existed previously within ICANN in terms of the different groups being really focused on their own issues and focused or as Lori alluded to entrenched in their positions for years and years. I think what we've seen is far better understanding across various groups within the ICANN community of each other's positions. Frankly, relationships have been built that might not have existed before. When you engage in a multi‑stakeholder process, those relationships and the ability to understand different positions and the willingness to compromise are critical. I think that was a key outcome from the IANA transition process. Thanks.
>>
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that. Yes, Steve. I was going to say that people are very actively involved. I would like to listen from that.
>> STEVE: The compromise that Lori just spoke of was enabled by a missing ingredient none of you have talked about and that was the presence of a deadline. We didn't have a deadline. I don't know how that would have been an incentive for the entrenched folks to come down the line. A deadline here was the end of the Obama Administration when we would lose that particular approach and who knew what the next would be. Actually, who could have predicted what actually happened. We know now, but that presence of a deadline, if it can be brought into other multi‑stakeholder experiences can pay significant dividends because it can drive compromise. I realize that it might cause cutting of corners. It might be suboptimal with working out the details, but work stream one, work stream two worked quite L. I think that's where you work out the details without having a deadline moving over your head. Thank you.
>> Participant: I agree that it's important for the community to as a collective group set a deadline and try to stick to it, but I want to hasten the ad and add some external body impose a headline is destructive. For that reason, the United States government never imposed a deadline. It is the community who saw the looming administration who felt that gee, we really need to wrap up and that's wonderful and that's great and I think facts bear out the fact that was a wise decision. But indeed, when the process started in 2014 internally, we thought yeah. It would be about a year because the contract at that point was set to expire in September of 2015. But when it became apparent in the early summer of 2015 that the community likely wasn't going to complete its work, we then asked the community how much more time do you want because we needed to extend the contract. Based on the communities the statement that we can get this done in one more year, we extended the contract to September of 2016 and then the community took that burden on in terms of insuring they get their work done and time to make that date. But again, it points out the power of doing this on a consensus BASIS with all stakeholders had United States come out in 2014 and said this must be done by September 2015. The process might have created at that point because simply because people would have been working to an artificially deadline. I want to make that distinction.
>> CHAIRMAN: It was a very narrow window of opportunity. Jordan would like to jump in.
>> Jordan: Thanks. My name is Jordan Carter. And one of the things that I've had the privilege to work with people is on the accountability track. I wanted to make a point. It was about this deadline idea and really I think the thing that made the IANA transition work is that there wasn't a plausible alternative process. If you kind of generalize that about multi‑stakeholder processes, I think they work well when a powerful stakeholder or set of stakeholder can't go around and get the decision they want from some other process. So in the case of the transition, you know, there was a referee, if you like, that said this has to be a multi‑stakeholder process. Here are boundary conditions and with that, go and do what you want to do. The reason I have raised this, I been thinking about this multi‑stakeholder to other processes and the worn I have is international trade negotiations. The interesting thing is state sovereignty means governments can be very unwilling to give up their mandate to agree trade agreements to a multi‑stakeholder process, but maybe they wouldn't be unwilling to do that if they had thought the whole logic through of getting the stakeholders in the room. One of the things that did work is that no one wasn't the ICANN board, the GNSO wouldn't wonder outside the process and get their way around the side. Plenty of people claimed to be doing that during the course of the negotiations which added a certain level of interest as we went.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Yes. This is also an interesting point which has come up increasingly. I think right now this parallel workshop on that issue and there we have to recognize is a long transition of governments negotiating among themselves and usually behind closed doors. It is difficult to breakthrough and change the process as it has a long established process. Here with ICANN and the U.S. government to give the U.S. government created something new. ICANN is a new process in the international corporation, but I would like to take a step back and ask you if maybe a politicians take on all this. Please.
>> Yes. My name is Arda Gerkens. It is actually truly democratic process because you have all parties together looking at a problem to see how you can solve this together. And actually if one community could have pulled it off, it was the Internet community because you are close to all the regulations. When the Internet started, the Internet community basically all arranged everything itself. So it is very interesting to see lessons we can learn from that. I think one work that I didn't hear yet is the word trust. I think trust is also a very important issue if you extend a deadline for a year. You must trust the other party to solve this problem. I would very much hope that we could learn from this as politicians and start using this for exactly maybe Internet or privacy issues. Laws are being made at this moment by my government and are the government too where the community thinks why didn't you ask me for a solution because, you know, the way you're going now is not the right way. We tend to think as politicians that we need to know the answers, but we need more and more especially around the Internet to sit down and talk to each other and let it go, let in our power go and go and sit around the table and try to solve this together. I think the most important thing is to have the main goal to know to have a goal or have a problem that you recognize this is the problem. How are we going to solve it. If you have a different goal, then it will be problematic and you cannot even compromise. If you have a mutual goal, I think you can. So I would love to see how we can take the lessons learned from this transition. It's a big thing, right? It's not just a small situation. It's a big thing this whole transition. You pulled it off which is wonderful. And we should really try to see if we can get that into more decision making in the world starting with politics.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for this. I think what you said is about the very democratic process and I think the multi‑stakeholder approach indeed, is participator toy democratic process. I would like to turn maybe to Grace. Give maybe your perspective as a newcomer to the ICANN and you also come from a country which has learned to introduce multi‑stakeholder processes. I was told even in an article in the Kenyan constitution new stipulates the government to consult stick holders before taking this. I would like to hear from you, Grace.
>> Grace Mutung'u: We did a study of what has been discussed ‑‑ has anyone discussed on the mailing list over the past 10 years. Interestingly enough, there was a lot of discussion about ICANN over the 10 years. In fact, there was one thread which went something like Larry Strickling speaks or something like that. And, um, the other interesting thing about it is that all the discussions on ICANN were led by individuals. Some are from the private sector. Others are from the Civil Society, but to a large extend, they also saw some from the government but to a large extent, Kenya's participation in ICANN has been through individuals and especially in Civil Society, it's through individuals and not through organizations. As Markus mentioned, in 2010, we had a change of constitution in Kenya. In one of the contributions from the ICT community was to push for public participation and which is a form of multi‑stakeholder rising. It was entrenched in the constitution and it's a requirement that when any public body is making a decision, it has to consult the people who are affected by that decision. So this was somehow the influence of the ICT community which has for a long time been practicing multi‑stakeholderism to the constitution and nation building in Kenya. In 2016, I was also doing a study on the case of Africa and I got interested and joined the non‑commercial users constituency. When looking at the case of north art 46a, which was also widely discussed in Kenya, there was always the question of: We'll find this multi‑stakeholderism, but does every stakeholder, does their input carry the same weight? As much as this multi‑stakeholderism, all stakeholders do they have the same capacity? Are they always at the table and tieing this back to the Internet study, it is actually a big capacity especially with Civil Society voices who are always individuals and without too much commitment and capacity building, they are not able to participate as effectively as other stakeholders. To make it worse, in the developing world, Internet governance is not usually one of the key priorities in society because the other competing interests. From there, IANA transition, we had ‑‑ that's also around the time when there was a lot of advocacy for more of ICANN in Africa and more participation by Africans. It was around the time when ICANN opened an office in Nairobi. So one really interesting and good lesson that I hope would be carried forward was that instead of the usual people going to ICANN, ICANN came to the people and they were all these meetings and engagements with people to just tell them in very simple terms to educate them about what's ‑‑ what the transition was all about and how it affected them and to get their input. Well, I think this is a very good thing. I think it would be most sustainable if it was done not by individuals, but by organizations. So my parting shot would be that ICANN should consider working with organizations especially in developing countries to increase capacity and to increase ‑‑ to increase participation and to have more meaningful participation of people from developing regions in ICANN processes.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that. You have not mentioned the actual names that make entry into the ICANN universe and other complex.
[Laughter]
But we don't have to go into that. Everybody recognizes that. We mentioned that. Lori, please.
>> LORI SCHULMAN: I wanted to add to that point about the acronyms. I think one of the challenges of applying the multi‑stakeholder model outside of any environment is exactly that once you have a group of people who get together who dedicate the amount of time and resources and those of us that revolve in ICANN do, you form your own language. I don't think that can be helped. It is part about how human beings function. We create our own cut cultures within bigger cultures. With that being said, I think that is important when discussing multi‑stakeholderism to make sure that it remains accessible. There are definite barriers to entry here. One is to your point, Markus, about acronyms inside any community. I think it's a great example, but there is also great investments of time, travel support and I wanted to add something that I think ICANN is especially well that we're the multi‑stakeholder model that to insure adequate literal support, ICANN always make sure we have technical support whether that be through the use of Adobe Connect, other remote providers, translation into multiple languages, rotating times of meetings. There's a huge logistical piece of multi‑stakeholderism that I think is important to recognize as well as the philosophical under pinnings.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you, can we go to our video?
>> I wanted to add to grace and Lori. I know many governments have like processes in which they say that you have some kind of multi‑stakeholder approach which basically it's not. An interpret consultation is not a multi‑stakeholder approach. A meeting where you tell people you're planning to do and somebody else said I do note it. It is not multi‑stakeholder. If you want to be multistage holder, you should make sure that process is there and I totally agree with you, Lori, and it's been said in the beginning. You need to make sure everybody starts off on the same foot. Everybody needs to have the same funding and same possibilities to meet and to join each other and this is really crucial. Otherwise we all know that the party with the most money will get ‑‑ will influence that process and the outcome of the process and then you still won't have the agreement you want to have. That's something we really need to recognize.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Can we go to the video? Lilian, one of our panelists was supposed to attend remotely, but she cannot make it. She has given us a video that addresses some of these issues. Can you play the video, please?
>> LILIAN DELUQUE BRUGES: We would like to address with you at the time with a short comment and question. When we discuss Internet governance, there is a focus on the checks and chances needed for the multi‑stakeholder to treat. This is mostly done by insuring stakeholders can express their views about the attempt in discussion. Well, here in Colombia, we have created a landscape. We tend to involve our local voices in Internet police, our indigenous communities and our new commerce to Internet government school. Engagement and community suites ask IT women and many other space. So my question to the IGF panelists is how can we build community force so government school and specific communities to engagement in police (?). Would it be possible for them to keep engagement communities in the book of stakeholders (?) for which stance would like me to wait on ICANN recommendation for the diversity or indigenous community, et cetera. Thank you.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Lilian. She can't hear us, but nevertheless we have taken note. Some of these questions have already been discussed, but maybe orders would like to react to that. Meanwhile, I have an e‑mail from Mark Carvell who was supposed to be one of our panelists. Anyone would like to comment? Yes, please.
>> (?) (low voice) so I want to come back to a point which I think is incredibly important and it's something in the course of our interviews we saw this emerging, which is a certain confusion over what is actually a multi‑stakeholder approach. The defining battle of Internet Governance over the last 15 years around the domain name system has been the question as to who gets to make the decisions that guide the evolution of the domain system? Is it governance acting as governments or is it the internet community, the global Internet stakeholders? And what was at stake was who gets to make the decision. We are losing that concept as people continue to talk about multi‑stakeholder approach ‑‑ multi‑stakeholder approach. Too much of the debate has turned into too much it's multi‑stakeholder participation and decision making, but what that really is being defined by many governments is simply having some consultation with stakeholders. That is a far different thing and a far weaker thing than what the battle has been about for the last 15 years. And I really urge everyone in the community to think about being as precise as they can when they talk about the multi‑stakeholder approach because this whole question of consensus based outcomes implies that we are talking about bringing a group of people together who are going to reach a decision which then they would see implemented. Now, that's easily answered in the ICANN context because it is all built into the organization and the way it operates. But if you want to convene a group of stakeholders who talk about a broader question like the security issues and the Internet of things, you are immediately faced with a question of okay. A group of people comes together and they reach a consensus and then what happens? Who implements the outcome? I think if we're going to expand the use of this approach, we have to insure that the convenings that are taking place right from day one understand and define an outcome that is within the competencies of the parties to the discussion to actually implement. So it may drive us to things involving new business processees or best practices or codes of conduct that people can implement so that there's a change. Otherwise, I think one of the things the IANA transition proved is how intensive good multi‑stakeholder discussions are. You will not get people to commit those. It can go on a shelf more and be ignored by the ultimate decision maker and implementer. For the community to say it's okay if we get a consultation, I think we're giving up way too much way too soon in part for Internet governance and we need to be careful we're not sliding back into the notions that consultation is enough because that's not what the multi‑stakeholder bottle is based on and I don't think that's what takes advantage of the incredible power of getting lots of stakeholders with lots of view points together to solve problems.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We have few people that would like to take after Grace and Matthew asked for the floor and Aiden, yes.
>> Grace: I think it is always cliche to say ICANN is hard because of the acronyms. It just sweeps under the carpet so many other big issue because of acronyms. At the end of the day, more outreach and the more ICANN is known to the people, the plan is to understand. In any case, there are so many other parallels you can draw from how ICANN is structured that you don't necessarily need to know the acronyms to walk through the complexity of the organization. I think there are so many other issues that we over simplify when we go with a cliche of acronyms is the problem with newcomers in ICANN. And I just also wanted to state that the thing I like about ICANN is that you can join the process. It's not just about consultation before decision making. There's also a chance to shape the decision because you can join the process from the time the decision is being consensualized to the time it is negotiated to the time the decision is made and then implemented. There are so many opportunities along the way. And so for me the biggest problem is just that if it's so open where there are enough people from all over the world or from so many other diversities, so it still comes back to the question of that we have consensualized bringing in people as only bringing them to this physical meetings or not giving enough support to make them participate in other processes. For example, to participate in the calls, to participate just taking time to learn about the history of ICANN or about other issues in ICANN. This is why I think it would make so much more sense to have organizations that work specifically on ICANN issues the same way the organizations are working on climate, the same way they are working on health. So they're able to meaningfully participate in the processes at all the stages.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Grace. Thank you for introducing the concept of decision shaping and decision making. We had to learn to makes painful learning experience when negotiating with the EU that you cannot take decisions, but you may be able to shape decisions. The U.K. citizens in the room will learn the same experience. Matthew wanted to comment.
>> MATTHEW SHEARS: As a U.K. citizen, it will be a painful experience I'm sure. I wanted to come back ‑‑ I wanted to comment on what Grace said and what Arda said is incredibly important. Grace, you mentioned the inclusiveness and the opportunity for engagement. I think that's absolutely right. From personal experience, it took me three ICANN meetings to really come up to speed and to be able to contribute and the intensity of the IANA process was incredibly helpful. But that was a full on almost full‑time engagement. But ICANN is doing a lot to reach out and maybe Aiden can speak to how organizations can participate as a part, for example, of NCSG. But to Arda's point, we have to be careful about this decision of multi‑stakeholder rhetoric. There have been many occasions in recent floors where there have been claims of multi‑stakeholder where they weren't clearly multi‑stakeholder. We have a responsibility as a community of introducing to continue to call out when it is not being appropriately implemented. I would also say that there are many proponents, but it is important no matter what group they are from to implement those processees. We do not have enough examples we can point to. It's very convenient to point to the ICANN IANA transition process, but that is something engrained into our very nature. So it would be nice to see more multi‑stakeholder processees and we can talk about that a little bit because there are some. But more processees being implemented by those that are proponents of multi‑stakeholderism. Thanks.
>> CHAIRMAN: Introduce yourself.
>> Sure. Thanks, everyone. Hi. My name is Aiden. I am stepping in today for (?) who cannot join us. For those of you who don't know me, I represent the non‑commercial stakeholders group as a counselor on the counselor of the generic name supporting organization. I wanted to respond to a few things that I heard. Personally by lending my support to the comments that Grace just made with language. There are challenges and barriers to participation in ICANN. But I don't accept that acronyms or having to learn a few words is a significant barrier. I cannot think of more than 10 acronyms that I am regularly exposed to as ICANN. Where there is a barrier is the structure that ICANN has adopted to fulfill its charter. That is complex. The processes are obscure and too few people have been able to figure out how to contribute. But in any environment, any professional circle, you need to learn the lingo to be able to participate.
On what was mentioned earlier about scale or participation, I agree that on one end of the scale, if there is not full delegation of authority and there is merely a generic consultation process where you can speak, but you are not necessarily heard, that is problematic and that is one of the questions I have about ICANN processes in general is that throughout ICANN's history, ICANN the organization, ICANN the board has made it possible for people to submit formal comments on general or specific issues to participate in working groups. And that participation can happen remotely. There is also the resources that generously offer people to meetings face to face; however, the extent to which this participation influences important decisions is less clear. I think it is harder ‑‑ aside from the IANA transition, I think to say that there would be a level playing field where all voices are given equal weight would not be true. To the attributes that were identified earlier, I agree with all of them that the whole marks of the successful multi‑stakeholder process as Larry mentioned that it is stakeholder driven, it is transparent and there are consensus based icons it has to be compromised and a form of implementation. But there are two other words I would like to add that are essential to an effective multi‑stakeholder process. There are few things to what ICANN is, but I think one is to standards and volunteer driven effort and bottom‑up processees. There tends to be shared responsibilities. So, they managed to minimize the mismatch of trying to achieve and the means of going about it by having clearly defined responsibilities for the participating stakeholders. And secondly, I would just add that the active use of multi‑stakeholders build support and acceptance among those stakeholders building their own confidence in the use of approach. Thanks. I might leave my comments there for now.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
>> KEITH DRAZEK: I wanted to add some of the comments made by Arda and Larry references to self‑regulation and government regulation and the tension between the two. Arda mentioned that we in the internet community have been successful in multi‑stakeholder engagement because we have been closer to self‑regulation because we are relatively new in the grand scheme of things. Larry mentioned over the last 15 years, one of the big challenges within ICANN and DNS policy making is this tension between private sector and not meaning business, but non‑governmental versus governmental regulation. As we look ahead and try to take lessons from our experience in ICANN, I think it's important to recognize that there will be times where decisions that come out of a multi‑stakeholder process conflict with government regulations and we actually are seeing that in practice today. The example that I'll refer to and I won't get into the specifics or the details, but as a broad observation with the GDPR and the conflicts with ICANN's current who is policies. We have an example of a global policy for generic top level domains developed in the global public interest through a formal policy development process in the ICANN space multi‑stakeholder bottom‑up consensus driven policy making that appears now to be in conflict or at least have some challenges with the national regulations around GDPR. Without going into a whole lot of detail there, one of the take aways or the lessons that we engage in policy making and decision making, it is critical that we recognize early and often where there are possible conflicts with national laws. And not only existing national laws, but I think we need to be aware of the development of new regulations and where those may be in conflict with the policies that we have developed that are intended to apply globally in the public interest to the ‑‑ our area of expertise. So as we look ahead to future engagement and multi‑stakeholderism outside the DNS, my message or the lesson or the take away would be we just need to be very aware of where that tension is going to exist in a real world environment. Thanks.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I don't think we want to turn this into a discussion on the GDPR. Lori would like to jump in now.
>> LORI SCHULMAN: Yeah, I would. We had discussed yesterday and I think piggybacking on GDPR would be a very good place. We have an issue now with having an open registrar information system where we can find out the names of who owns and contact information of who owns particularly domain names and that information can be used to transact business. That information can be used for enforcement. It can help settle a technical problem with the domain itself. So there are many, many uses for that open system and now to your point very well taken, Keith. It is coming into conflict with trends across the world about how to protect identifiable information. There are cross‑border implications as well as just governmental versus non‑governmental. So I wanted to raise a point which I think is an important example of how to solve cross‑border problem that's worked very well for 18 years for ICANN. That's ICANN's first consensus policy on domain name disputes. The uniform domain name dispute policy, the UDRP, known to many is basically a bottom‑up process that has developed over the course of time where there was great concern among intellectual property owners, particularly trademark owners. I didn't fully introduce myself. My name is Lori Schulman. I am senior director for the international trademark association. Our association is over 100 years old. We've been around much longer than the Internet actually since 1848. And the roots of our organization were to advance the interest of trademark law and trademark owners to the extent that trademarks are rooted in consumer protection. That it is to your point about trust. If you want to talk about origin and trust and understanding the source of information or products or services, a trademark is a way to do that. But when the domain name system was first developed and ICANN was formulated and there were various papers produced,the white paper,s green paper that came out of thinking about the United States government and the private sector about what do we do about this problem of abusing domain names and the trademark sense and how can we possibly monitor this across 160 jurisdictions and we understand there's all different types of cases. What do we do with the easiest cases, but the most egregious and the ones giving consumers the most difficulty and understanding the source of a good or service online through the use of the domain name. Through that, a policy was developed through the multi‑stakeholder model which came up with a resolution process. Over the course of 18 years, we've had contracted providers. WIPO being one of them. The forum being another that have implemented this policy have independently recruited panelists, have independently created a body of law where now if you file your DRP, you have a predictable outcome. That didn't mean giving up sovereignty or moving away from national law. I think what makes the UDRP so unique is you can get a good result, but it is the loses end on that result wants to and they can go file a national appeal and evoke national law. So you have this level of enforcement that says hey, here's a system that's been developed bottom‑up. Let's go use it. But if there's an inherent problem, we can resort to national law. Thinking about the problems we're facing if there is some content issues we're having, some security issues we're thinking about, having this middle layer between an institution like ICANN, but then a broader global solution for it, what is essentially private problems? To give that kind of a boost would be important. I know from the intellectual property perspective, there's a lot of controversy within ICANN about what level of protection should or had not be afforded to certain types of intellectual property, trademarks being one. Content, copyrighted content like films or music being another or speech, political speech, of course. So with that being said, I think and I think the most of the community would agree that the UDRP has worked really well. One of the beauties of ICANN's policy development system and the multi‑stakeholder model is periodically these decisions and processees that are reviewed and reviewed through mechanisms like ICANNs bilaws that mandate certain reviews. Right now the UDRP will be under review as part of that process. With that being said, it is someone that works within this model since the beginning of the model. We can say over the course of 18 years it's developed well.
>> CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that. We had two broad threads in this discussion. Can we learn from the transition and you introduced the new element to go forward. Also for ICANN. And the other one was can we learn from the transition and transpose that to other models of governance. So I really would like to draw on the expertise in the room and hear from all the people. There's a lot of expertise here. What is your take? A, what can we do to improve within ICANN? What can we learn from past experience? Can we improve ICANN model or B, can we actually introduce that multi‑stakeholder model that we learned through the transition to other areas? Jordan mentioned trade and again, also there was a very big resistance of government giving up that privilege. I think Arda also mentioned that it is always difficult for politicians to let go. She seems to be ready to let go, if the rest of expertise come in. But I am not sure all politicians will be able to let go. I would be interested to hear from participants in the room. Steve, you have been very active participant in the Ana transition. What can we learn? Would you like to take the floor? Steve?
>> STEVE: Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, the notion of urgency would be an excellent ingredient to search. If we search for another body that had multi‑stakeholders engaged and found something urgent, now the urgency doesn't have to be a deadline. It can be solving a serious problem, a fake news issue, being concerned about cybersecurity, state actors and otherwise. So finding issues that have about them a sense of urgency through which a concerted action can lead to some conclusion even if it's only just a convention or a series of best practices may not carry the implementation weight that policies do at ICANN with respect to domain names, but it can carry a lot of weight to the way companies represents their best practices and the way to inform consumers. So I think that we should cast about and the IGF is a great place to find crisis facing the Internet. If you're looking, Markus, for areas outside of the Internet, there are still a lot of those discussed here at IGF as well. I think an urgency to solve a problem is where we should start looking.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for those comments. I think cybersecurities is an excellent example. You said only a convention. I'm not sure the only is justified description. There is definitely, I think, maybe even a turning point people feel the urgency that something aught to be done. Introduce yourself.
>> Is it working now? Okay. Yes. So my name is Manella. I work for the Egyptian government. I participated in this process as the government of Egypt.
So on the IANA transition, I think one of the things that made the process successful was prioritization as well. It was a priority to everyone in the community and everyone really concentrated on this specific issue. I think part of the problem is that too many things running in parallel so people do not really progress and achieve and come with an output. So I think one point is prioritization of efforts so that the multi‑stakeholder model can deliver. It was a very good demonstration that the multi‑stakeholder model can deliver and I think it was also one of the few processes that best utilized the multi‑stakeholder nature of the organization. I usually think that despite the multi‑stakeholder nature of ICANN we don't necessarily usually work in a multi‑stakeholder set finding each constituency that works on its own and then we start discussions bilaterally and multilaterally and cross ‑‑ so probably this also takes more time. On the deadline thing, I think as far as there is progress and the negotiations are going well, then we should allow some time for the discussions because we have to priority the characteristics that it takes a little bit more time, but it delivers more quality and more credible output. So we should be able to decide whether the discussion has already stalled and we need them to agree on a deadline so that we can draw a conclusion. And other key word here is agreeing consensusly agree nag we are progressing so we should allow more time. We are not progressing. So we should try to conclude and if we're going to impose a deadline, again this should be agreed within the community. So this is another key word that we consensusly agree on whatever action we will do next. One final thing is breaking things down to maybe phases or smaller problems so that we can progress faster as well. So prioritization, consensus and breaking things down. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. You talked quite a lot about the uniqueness in terms of sense of urgency and window of opportunity. It was not an artificial deadline. It was a situation opportunity that needed to be exploited. That cannot be repeated easily. This was a macro political situation which was there a window of opportunity and community ceased the opportunity and felt a common sense of urgency. But all the other things that you say is that we have a common understanding of the deadline. It is important. I think maybe the most important point you made was ICANN usually works in silos and the transition helped to break down the silos. My question is: Is there anything we can learn from that going forward? I heard a comment made that PDPs are bad and I think it may not be as simple as that. Is there something that can be learned? I look here and there are representatives on the Geneva council. There are people in the room who are intimately involved to see one of ICANN.
>> The lesson learned for me is early engagement and participation is key to achieving consensus. We saw many efforts that were navigating towards one direction and then at some point one actor or another would dive into this effort and just sweep away to another completely different direction. But I believe that that was maybe consequence of not engaging and not participating actively in a timely fashion. But then when the different actors began participating actively and engaging with the rest of the community in a way that we were synchronized in some sort of way, the ‑‑ the way or the course of the efforts were better driven. So I guess that for me the key learning of this as he pointed out, it is also engaging and actively participating early on the different processes within ICANN.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Comments, Keith?
>> KEITH DRAZEK: I think Steve has touched on a really important point. We have to recognize that ICANN is a unique entity and it's processees are quite unique as well. The multi‑stakeholder model can transcend that and can be placed into other spaces, but it requires a specific amount of effort to implement. I like Steve's idea that perhaps we need to think about how best to bring multi‑stakeholder processees to new issues where there report engrained issues that may have taken three or four years so far. And then in that sense, the area of cybersecurity is right for that because everybody recognizes I think that this is ‑‑ these are systemic and holistic issues that need to be dealt with. So I think these new issue areas where there's an opportunity for stakeholders to come together and bring new experiences and approaches and based upon the multi‑stakeholder process is an attractive idea and I think that is something we should be pursuing as a community.
>> Thank you, Marcus. Keith Drazek. I think we've bouncing around a little bit, but I want to go back to your very provocative questions. I think it's a great question. I think in the ICANN community, we've seen CCWG is relatively new. I think the cross community working group on the IANA transition and ICANN processees abilities are obvious and the community coming together as a body. We're breaking down the silos and working together and better understanding each other. Alluding back to the comments I made at the outset, I think they were very, very successful in that. They were focused on issues that were broader than just any one segment of the community. It was really an over arching approach. The transition was not specific to just generic TLDs or CC TLDs or through the ISO. It was a much broader community wide issue and therefore very appropriate for a GCCD structure. If you're talking specifically about a policy related to gTLDs, not related to ccTLDs and not related to IP addresses, the PPLD is the formal structure where those policies are supposed to be developed. I see Becky wants to weigh in here, but I will wrap up by saying there are some gray areas here though. So I think one example that we're seeing today is this question about geographic names. So how do you classify or describe or define a geographic name? Today it's a gTLD. It is not a ccTLD. There is no category for anything else. So geographic name is by default a generic top level domain. Therefore it belongs in the GNSO and PPD process. They're open to anybody that wants to contribute and participate. There is a formal structure for the development of those policies and those policies will eventually impact the contracts of the registries and registrars of the gTLD space. I think it's a really interesting question. I am a strong supporter of CCWGs for that engagement where it is appropriate. But if it's very, very targeted on something in the gTLD space, then the GNSO PDP is where it was.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: My apology to those that are not part of the (?). I started it. So the CCWG is a work group that involves everybody in the ICANN family. PDP is a policy process. But I saw, Brian, you asked for the floor. And ‑‑
>> Brian: Thank you, Markus. Grace and ‑‑
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Can you please introduce yourself?
>> My name is Brian Beckham. Grace and Larry mentioned kind of threshold concepts with respect to the multi‑stakeholder model which goes to how far do we engage in consultation and how far do we differ to those consultations. ICANN's bilaws mandate that in its policy development processes, it should refer to experts. Lori mentioned that the UDRP is a policy under which we manage disputes that come to us is going to be reviewed by ICANN. When this issue came up prelude to the program, there was a decision taken to wait until the new GTlds had launched. This was one stable mechanism. We knew it worked. Let's leave well enough alone, but during that process, we approached a former board member and we engaged on the question of how do we bring our expertise in these policy discussions to bear. We were told we should roll up our sleeves and join the working group. To me, that is at odds with the bilaws requirement that policy making should rely on expertise and that gets back to a more core question in terms of what those multi‑stakeholderisms are and what does consultation mean? Does it mean we have to listen to everyone at the cost of listening to experts or does it mean that there may be forks in the road and where does that lead us?
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Vicky, please introduce yourself.
>> My name is Becky. I am a member, but I am not speaking for the board. I was not on the board during the transition and was on the accountability working group, the cross community working group. I want to tie a couple of themes together. So Larry made a point that was very interesting to me which was the distinction between decision making and consultation and the critical nature of the multi‑stakeholder model being about decision making and about placing decision making authority where you place it. That ‑‑ that's ‑‑ that plays into the expertise issue, but then there were also comments about deadlines and urgency. It's true that there wasn't an artificial deadline with respect to the transition, but there was a window of opportunity that could close and in fact, probably did. And yet the fact that there was a point at which a decision would be made whether by us or for us ‑‑ there are some pretty strong incentives, I think, to have hold out and improvable object behavior. I think we've had some of that. So now I'm going to be provocative. I think that the PDP is actually providing some incentives to get out of hold out and improvable object behavior. Because at some point, a decision is going to get made and if you're not at the table and if you're not participating in a way that contributes to developing consensus, well, that decision might get made without your input. And so I don't think, you think, CCWGs are good and PDPs are bad and CCWGs are bad. They serve very different functions, but the absence of a window of opportunity that could close and the proper incentives to reach consensus strikes me as potentially not a good thing. So I think that the two things balance each other out and are very useful.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, but I would like to give the opportunity to all of our panelists to take a take away. Very quick, what is your take away from this session?
>> I think I am more than before driven to try to get this multi‑stakeholder process somewhere in politics. I don't know how I will do it, but I'm going to try it.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Larry?
>> LARRY: I think people think that ICANN is a very unique animal of this system of multi‑stakeholder processes. It's got it's own unique idiosyncrasies and while I think it is provided the best demonstration of how well a multi‑stakeholder process can work, it is not the model by which others should structure new approaches if that's going to happen. I do think it's important to test out these ideas and see whether or not there's an independent basis on which we can find issues with the level of urgencies. Steve, you are absolutely right. If there's no urgency, people won't put in the right time. There is that level of urgency and the fact that people come together can make concrete progress towards solving a problem. We will test that next year with this project and we'll find out whether people whether we can identify and convene on those sorts of issues and overcome a lot of the barriers to convening which were mentioned the logistics of finding a place to meet and bringing the Internet Connectivity and handling translation where you need it, providing financial assistance to insure broad representation of view points. These are all barriers that prevent people from doing this on their own. But we will see if we can create this capability and find those issues to bring people together and in doing so, hopefully provide some sense of legitimacy to the overall effort. I think that's a different animal and needs to be evaluated on its own merits and not be supporting to ICANN.
>> Very brief, I said.
>> I think what this discussion is shown is that the multi‑stakeholder model in ICANN works and there's a lot to learn from it. But we have to recognize that there are different multi‑stakeholder approaches to different issues. I think we need to find those spaces where we can bring stakeholder expertise and new policy areas and new issues that are pressing that we need to address. Thanks.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Keith?
>> KEITH DRAZEK: It has legs and I think it has shown success. And it is still evolving. I think there are clearly lessons to be taken from what we have experienced over the last 15 to 20 years in terms of multi‑stakeholder engagements around the domain name system. And I definitely think there are opportunities to take this experience to inform other areas of policy making and engagement that can benefit from our experience even if it's not a direct copy of what we're doing. I think there are lessons to be taken. Thanks.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thanks to all the panel and participants. I think the call to action offered to you all is think about what the obstructions are to using this model in other areas. For me is how difficult it is to create an environment where all of the participants in the debate have to come to a conclusion in the context of that debate. I really think whether you call it a deadline or something else, that's what makes the transition work. I see that as the key barrier. You might see different barriers. Thinking about those barriers and sharing them with people like Larry you are trying to work on ways to get a rounded perspective on the challenges. So think about the areas that you work in and share that experience.
>> So I agree that multi‑stakeholder is still a work in progress. I think we should as fast as possible try to make it more and more meaningful for stakeholders participating adequately.
>> Echoing the comments that were previously made. Multi‑stakeholders have worked with ICANN. If I was looking to take it to address another issue, I would look at the ICANN approach, but I would also look at why it is that nations remove barriers and I will be looking at that functionalism. The idea is delivered and the cost of not proceeding with integration and abandoning the process becomes too large. So I will be looking there as well to see if we might be able to identify this cost of different issues. Thanks.
>> Hello. Lori. The first thought that comes to mind is democracy is messy and that's okay. And I think multi‑stakeholderism I agree with Grace. It is (?) phones. We haven't seen it full potential. We have seen a little slice. I want to emphasize something that is near and dear to us in the community. That is capacity building that is required to make good digital citizens and make people not just understand, but want to engage in multi‑stakeholders and in a meaningful way. I thank goes to a lot of empowerment issues particularly in countries like Grace's. There is digital citizenship and may not have reached to the top of the priority pyramid and how do we make that happen because until it becomes a priority, I don't see us making much progress, quite frankly.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: And here we are in the IGF, which is also a multi‑stakeholder forum, but did is not a decision making body. I have always been saying it can shape the decisions that are taken elsewhere. I think it stays important to engage in the IGF and it allows me to end the commercial. Today is open forum for ICANN in this very same room at 10 past 4:00. So please join the ICANN open forum. With that, I ask you to join me in giving a hand for all the panelists.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you all. And thank you for your active participation.