Key Principles For Coordination Of Internet Unique Identifiers

These key principles and mechanisms should be embedded into the structure of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) through the multistakeholder accountability process:

• Community of Stakeholders as Ultimate Authority: he community of ICANN stakeholders should be the ultimate overseer of the DNS, responsible for: promoting a single, decentralized, open, and interoperable Internet; preserving the integrity, transparency and accountability of IP numbers and their assignments; managing domain names, and protocol number assignments; maintaining the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS; and meeting the needs and expectations of global customers and partners of the DNS.
• Separation of Functions: policy making, dispute resolution and implementation.
• Policy Making Function: : ICANN’s existing structure of Supporting Organizations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs), which provide technical and policy guidance and which comprise its bottom-up, consensus multi-stakeholder model, should continue to be responsible for policy making.
• Dispute Resolution Function: Expansion of ICANN’s Independent Review Panel
• Implementation Function
• Protection from Government Capture: neither the CEO nor the members of either Board of Directors should be a member of a government or government-controlled organization.
• Transparency
• Specific Rights and Responsibilities Appropriate for Each Function:
• Consensus: a significant supermajority for final action on all policy decisions.
• Budget and Revenue Limitation
• Equitable Agreements
• Prior Adoption: These principles and their assured implementation should be adopted and made effective prior to the transfer of the IANA contract to ICANN, or to any other party that replaces the US as contract counterparty; should be embedded in ICANN’s Articles of Incorporation & By-Laws.