Icann: France regrets the low weight of governments – ZDNet France

The transition of ICANN, who tried for years to make its independence from the US government began to take shape. But the current agreement, won through long negotiations at the summit held in Marrakech there two weeks displeases the French government.

The Secretary of State Digital Axelle Lemaire has issued yesterday a statement on its website explaining his grievances. According to the secretary of state “elements of this reform project will result marginalize States in the decision process of Icann, especially compared the role to the private sector. ”
 

The point that bothers both the French Government is in the 11th recommendation of the agreement resulting from the Marrakech summit recommendation that defines the role and powers left to the GAC, the government representative group within Icann. This has indeed the possibility of issuing opinions that the administrative board of Icann may decide to ignore. The recommendation nevertheless provides that GAC advice will default followed by the Board and that it will vote to reject the board.

In case of rejection, the administrative board of Icann should explain GAC the reasons for refusal and begin a mediation process to resolve the conflict. But for GAC advice is taken into account, it will require that the participating governments expressed a unanimous opinion that the French Government considers particularly difficult to achieve.
 

As one of the Quai d’Orsay representative, quoted by lemonde.fr “We’re in the privatization of ICANN, not its internationalization. “The French representation feared too much power left to private actors in the new version of the organization. A direction against-productive while ICANN is trying to emancipate themselves from American tutelage to begin its transition to a more representative and multi-stakeholder model. The body remains in effect a US company and key ecosystem players are essentially American.
 

The French representation, followed by several other representations of Latin American and African countries have therefore expressed their disagreement, but did not wish to block the process. The agreement has been accepted by the state and will now be forwarded to the US administration, which must approve the text before beginning a transition in 2016.