PROPOSAL FOR GOVERNMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE (GAC) in APNIC --------------------------------------------------------- Authors: Rajesh Chharia rc@cjnet4u.com All ISP Community including ISPAI members 1. Introduction --------------- The idea of the GAC is Government Advisory Committee. Normally in international relations and international law we find that each sovereign nation has been given equal respect and all sovereign nations are entitled to participate in their own equal right in international relations, negotiations and discussions. This is a proposal to introduce GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) that would permit APNIC to receive an advice on public policy matters to handle activities and policies in matter where there may be an interaction between APNIC and National laws or international Agreement. 2. Summary ---------- The development and evolution of World Wide Web is the single most transformational factor in our lives has also meant that the development of regulations of internet has growing in its own so peculiar way. We have seen various international organizations which initially began as mere private organizations with private players who have suddenly begun important in today’s scenario. The said organizations deals with and manages various critical aspects pertaining to the current stability and smooth operation of the internet and its related aspects. Such organizations include ICANN, IANA, IETF, IEEE, ISOC etc. APNIC is the international organization that addresses the required Internet resources of Asia Pacific region. 56 economies falls under the geographical reach and ambit of APNIC. However mostly only a group of 11 nations through their member representation drives the policies of APNIC where as a majority of 45 countries have gone unrepresented. This has led to complete delineation and isolation of sovereign governments within Asia Pacific region. Developments in the past decade, especially related to National security and matters pertaining to sovereign discomfort over the independent policies of such organizations including APNIC has led misinformed decisions. Hence, there is an urgent need for APNIC to engage with the sovereign governments of each of the 56 nations which formed in its territorial reach and ambit. Currently the structure and nomenclature of APNIC, as documented in APNIC legal documentation does not provide any legal basis for continuing successful and meaningful engagement with the governments of sovereign nations in Asia Pacific. In this context that it is proposed that there is a need for APNIC to come across with Government Advisory Committee, on the lines similar to that of ICANN. 3. Situation in other RIRs -------------------------- There is no Government Advisory Committee in any existing RIRs. However that is no occasion or no grant for APNIC not to come across with its own concept of APNIC GAC. Responsible administration of a common public resource entails the active participation of many interested parties. The RIRs recognize the legitimacy and value of public interests in this activity, and have undertaken, and continue to undertake an active dialogue with various national and regional public sector entities on the topic of responsible Internet Number Resource administration and the relative roles of the RIRs and the public sector in this domain. The RIRs recognize that part of this public sector interest can be expressed through venues such as the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN. The RIRs understand that the GAC has assumed, in addition to its role, as an advisory committee to ICANN, certain outreach and coordination responsibilities in relation to its member Governments. In order to support the RIRs’ functions with respect to Internet Number Resource management, the RIRs therefore expect that GAC members should undertake at least the following specific activities: a. Advise their respective governments in regards to the management of Internet Number Resources as detailed above; b. Ensure that where their respective governments are participants in other organizations and fora, their representatives are fully apprised of issues relating to the management of Internet Number Resources, and can therefore ensure that informed decisions are made at all times. The RIRs are of the opinion that regular liaison between the RIRs and the GAC is an important ongoing requirement in order to ensure that the above functions can be carried out effectively. The current position of the RIRs with respect to ICANN can be summarized as follows: a. Policy Development. The RIRs believe that within the area of address management there is a valid role for a lightweight external review body with respect to global RIR policies, as part of an overall RIR requirement for check, balance and review in the global RIR policy determination process. The RIRs view this as a requirement for the policy development process to be protected to so that policy can only be made, changed, or overturned in a bottom-up process through open, transparent, and documented procedures. b. Internet Number Resources. The RIRs believe that within the area of the Internet Number Resource pool that these resources are public resources. In this regard there is a valid role for a lightweight external body to coordinate the allocation of Internet Number Resources to the RIRs in accordance with global policies pertaining to the management of these resources and to protect the unallocated pool of these resources to which the RIRs must have free access, through established procedures at all times. This role may be carried out by ICANN, or by another suitably-qualified organization. 4. Details ---------- The Internet is a global phenomenon and opens huge opportunities for all countries’ economies and citizens. However the world is not uniform. Each country and distinct economy has different laws, different attitudes, and different policies. Further while internet made geography history the fact remains that national governments started asserting their application of national laws to legal issues pertaining to the boundary less transaction committed on the boundary less medium of internet. Thus there was increasingly a need felt by international organizations to engage with the Government. However, given the peculiar nature of these organizations either as not for profit organizations or other legal entities, the biggest challenge was how to deal with governmental participation. Stature of GAC in ICANN In this context, ICANN has come up with very effective model in this direction. The model is that of the establishment of the Government Advisory Committee. It is clearly true thatThe Internet is a global phenomenon and opens huge opportunities for all countries’ economies and citizens. However the world is not uniform. Each country and distinct economy has different laws, different attitudes, and different policies. Further while internet made geography history the fact remains that national governments started asserting their application of national laws to legal issues pertaining to the boundary less transaction committed on the boundary less medium of internet. Thus there was increasingly a need felt by international organizations to engage with the Government. However, given the peculiar nature of these organizations either as not for profit organizations or other legal entities, the biggest challenge was how to deal with governmental participation. Stature of GAC in ICANN In this context, ICANN has come up with very effective model in this direction. The model is that of the establishment of the Government Advisory Committee. It is clearly true that no concrete action can effectively materialized in the context of internet, internet reform, reach, policy and regulation without the effective and meaning full participation of the Governments. In that regard ICANN came up with the Government Advisory Committee or GAC. The said Government Advisory Committee is composed of representative of large number of national governments from the entire world. ICANN relies on some advisory body committee to receive advices on the interest and needs of stakeholder that does not directly participate in the supporting organisation. GAC plays key role to provide advice to ICANN on issue of public policy GAC considers ICANN’s activities and policies as they relate to the concerns of governments particularly in matter where there may be an interaction between ICANN policies and national law or International agreements. The Scope of the GOVERNMENTAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE of ICANN, as per the legal documentation of ICANN, is as follows: ARTICLE 1 (GOVERNMENTAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (GAC OPERATING PRINCIPLES) Principle 1 The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) shall consider and provide advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, multinational governmental organisations and treaty organisations, and distinct economies as recognised in international forum, including matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN’s policies and various laws and international agreements and public policy objectives. Principle 2 The GAC shall provide advice and communicate issues and views to the ICANN Board. The GAC is not a decision making body. Such advice given by the GAC shall be without prejudice to the responsibilities of any public authority with regard to the bodies and activities of ICANN, including the Supporting Organisations and Councils. Principle 3 The GAC shall report its findings and recommendations in a timely manner to the ICANN Board through the Chair of the GAC. Principle 4 The GAC shall operate as a forum for the discussion of government and other public policy interests and concerns. Principle 5 The GAC shall have no legal authority to act for ICANN. The GAC’s meetings are usually held three or four times a year in conjunction with ICANN meetings. Currently, the GAC is regularly attended by over 30 national governments, distinct economies, and multinational governmental organisation such as the ITU and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Members of the GAC shall be national governments, multinational governmental organizations and treaty organizations, and public authorities, each of which may appoint one representative and one alternate representative to the GAC. Recently the GAC has considered and provided advice on a variety of issues, including: • What issues and public policy considerations ICANN should take into account when selecting new generic top level domains; • Guidance on matters related to the development of multilingual domain names (domain names in scripts other than the Latin alphabet such as Chinese, Cyrillic, and Arabic for example) including intellectual property protection, consumer protection, and cultural issues; • Principles for guidelines aimed at co-ordinating future domain name test bed environments, consistent with the need to foster innovation and creative experimentation; and • Principles for the sound management and administration of ccTLDs, including the development of the GAC document Principles for the Delegation and Management of Country Code Top Level Domains , which gives guidance on the roles of ICANN, governments, and registries in the operation of ccTLDs The GAC is actively seeking new members in order to increase global awareness and participation in important Internet management issues and to ensure that the GAC’s advice to ICANN reflects the diversity of the international community. In particular, the GAC is keen to increase participation from countries and distinct economies where the Internet is still developing. The GAC currently has 109 members, about 40 of which are active participants. It is open to participation by representatives of national governments each of which may appoint a representative and an adviser to the Committee. The GAC is a mere platform for government nominees and representations to come discuss issues pertaining to internet management security regulation and policy. The inputs of the GAC are directly relevant and are felt into the work plan as also the Board of Directors of ICANN and ICANN has effectively manage to a meaningful dialogue with governments of sovereign nations is likely to them engage with the Government Advisory Committee. We now examine the existing position in APNIC. APNIC is the international organization that is targeting at the Asia Pacific region. 56 numbers of countries are covered by the APNIC geographical reach and ambit. The remaining numbers of nations are not at all representing in all APNIC. This is primarily so because the nation have either not yet come to the platform of buying the minimum threshold of Internet Protocol addresses from APNIC or have not yet engaged their attention to this important aspect. But the fact still remains that only a group of 11 nations through their companies and representatives dominate APNIC where as a majority of 45 countries have gone un represented. This has led to delineation and isolation of sovereign governments within Asia Pacific region. There is an urgent need for APNIC to engage with the sovereign governments of each of the 56 nations which formed in its territorial reach and ambit. It is proposed that APNIC should have APNIC Government Advisory Committee, which should consist of invited representatives from all the nations, which are the region covered by it in Asia Pacific. These nations are covered to come and sit and participate on the said GAC to discuss and deliberate about important crucial and relevant issues policy recitals, stability, security and disadvantage pertaining to having a connection, relation or nexus of any kind whatsoever with the Internet Protocol address regime and the subject matters which are specifically dealt with by APNIC. APNIC should also adopt community like GAC to look over its policy, agreements and to receive advices from stakeholders’ members of APNIC shall be national governments, multinational governmental organizations and treaty organizations, and public authorities. 5. Pros/Cons ------------ Advantages: 1. The benefits of the proposed introduction of GAC in APNIC will be to induce with the Governments one to one basis. 2. The Government Advisory Committee gives the governments a feeling of the comfort as they are sitting on a platform consisting of the pierce from different other sovereign governments. 3. It will help APNIC leadership to get strategy inputs and advice by sovereign nations about specific points and areas that need to be kept by APNIC top leadership in mind, while proceeding ahead to deal with the subjects related to specific purview. 4. It also evaporates any potential discomfort with government representatives that may have by wanting to interact with the individuals belonging to private companies for managing the affairs of APNIC. 5. It helps in providing an effective meaningful platform for relevant discussion on the steps pertaining to APNIC domain. 6. APNIC is likely to bring the confidence of the relevant sovereign governments of the sovereign nations in Asia Pacific. . Such bringing confidence and support from sovereign nations will be a great positive factor which will further contribute in the overall growth and development of APNIC as an international world class transplant organization. 7. It helps in increasing the transparency and reliability of APNIC as an organization. 8. APNIC GAC helps to become a release point for dissatisfaction that this approval or concerns of sovereign nations about issues/policies/regulations about the subject matter that APNIC is currently peculiar. 9. Provide advice on the activities of APNIC as they relate to concerns of governments, multinational governmental organizations and treaty organizations, and distinct economies as recognised in international fora, including matters where there may be an interaction between APNIC’s policies and various laws and international agreements and public policy objectives. 10. The GAC shall operate as a forum for the discussion of government and other public policy interests and concerns. 11. Membership is open to all national governments. Membership is also open to distinct economies as recognised in international fora. Multinational governmental organizations and treaty organizations, may also participate as observers, on the invitation of the GAC through the Chair. Disadvantages: There are no major documented disadvantages of having a GAC in APNIC. Some people believe that GAC is a mere talk shop and that it has not likely to produced any results. However the past one decade of experience at ICANN has showed that having Government Advisory Committee in existence has far more benefits than any potential disadvantages. 6. Effect on APNIC ------------------ There will be no immediate affect for APNIC members with existing resource registrations already in the APNIC Who is Database. This will help the members and stakeholders to give advice through GAC. 7. Effect on NIRs ------------------ EFFECT ON NIRS The proposal has no direct impact on NIRs, but impacts members of NIRs in the same way it impacts APNIC members. EFFECT ON RIRs This is a wonderful opportunity for APNIC to effectively seize the leadership and provide model for other RIRs by starting up with its own RIR GAC. This example subsequently followed by other RIRs can become an effective model as a part of overall growth of Internet Governance phenomenon.