1.1.4 Legitimacy as a key to stability

There is an additional reason this is true as well. In many ways, ICANN rests on unstable ground. It is a voluntary association that has the ability to implement its decisions only to the extent that those decisions are perceived as legitimate by the relevant community-governments, private companies and Internet users.

ICANN has little in the way of coercive authority through which to enforce its decisions. Thus, the legitimacy of its decision-making process is particularly crucial for ICANN, since it is constantly in danger of being discredited or ignored. ICANN ultimately has no ability to stop the creation of alternative root servers with alternative DNS systems. The voluntary adherence by the worldwide Internet community to its decisions will likely continue only to the extent that those decisions appear to be based on a process that is fair and legitimate.

Nor can ICANN "borrow" the legitimacy of another institution, or of any government, since ICANN is structured as a freestanding private entity. The legitimacy of its decision-making must be generated by its own internal governance procedures. And if it fails to do so, it runs the risk of being deemed irrelevant, or inviting governments to take control of it or to regulate it in the name of imposing governmental policies of consumer protection, competition or other nationalistic goals.

For these reasons, ICANN-and all those who want the ICANN experiment to succeed-share a common interest in ensuring the legitimacy of ICANN's governance process. That legitimacy will be the best way to establish ICANN's own authority, and the best defense against those who would undermine ICANN or seek to devolve its role back to governments acting singly or in combination.

1.1.3 Mission: Technical and/or Policy?

1.2 ICANN's History and its Commitment to Public Representation