A representative of the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (O...

A representative of the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), has proposed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) for ICANN. While the U.S. delegation at the WGIG meeting in Geneva this week supported the ICANN model, the OFCOM representative said ICANN’s current situation is unsatisfactory. She cited a lack of accountability and transparency in selection of new top level domains. She said the role of govts. should be strengthened and an MoU involving all international stakeholders is needed, in contrast to the current one with the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. According to the official, the Swiss govt. wants this issue resolved during the PrepCom (WID Feb 16 p1). Other national delegations warned that WGIG should solve the issue because of harm that could occur after the WSIS otherwise. Fragmentation could result, said the chmn. of the Working Group, Nitin Desai, and he preferred the WGIG to address the problem in a more positive way. Valerie D'Costa, dir. of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, urged delegations to start a “frank discussion” on ICANN. The widely applauded statement asked for a focus on an evolutionary process, an understanding of governance as finding a better balance to the different interests involved, differentiation between national law and international law and between developing and developed countries, and a test for every possible mechanism with regard to multilateralism, transparency and democracy.