1.3.2.2 Participation through governments

Democratic governments themselves are institutions that, ideally, embody and represent the public (although governments can vary widely in the degree to which they are truly representative). But to the extent that governments have input into the decision-making process of ICANN, this is another potential avenue for public participation in ICANN's internal governance.

Again, however, this is an avenue with significant limits. Governments play a formal role in ICANN through the Government Advisory Committee (GAC), which provides institutional views to the ICANN board on matters of relevance to its members. But the role of GAC is poorly delineated. Although it is supposed to be advisory only, the GAC exercises apparently significant influence. But it does so with poor mechanisms for transparency, and for public input and participation because it operates largely in a closed and inaccessible fashion.

In its current form, the GAC's influence may be unavoidable. Though their formal authority in ICANN is minimal, the actual effect of strong government statements or policy initiatives should not be discounted. In that light, transparency and openness, not attempts at structural limitations on influence, offer the best hope for equitable participation by governments.

Public participation in ICANN through representation by governments in the GAC is an unsatisfactory solution for a deeper reason as well.

The underlying principle of ICANN is that it is a non-governmental institution. Indeed, the very point of ICANN is as an experiment in non-governmental self-organization. Governments are viewed with suspicion by the Internet community, mainly because of their inefficiency and lack of responsiveness to rapidly changing social and technological developments that have marked the growth of the Internet.

As is discussed above, ICANN was deliberately structured to be non-governmental. Although it is to operate on a global basis, it is not to be an international or multilateral organization like other inter-governmental treaty entities. In this sense it is not, like many other international entities, an organization formed by governments or consisting of governmental representatives. Instead, it is to be a global and transnational organization operating on a quasi-public basis outside of international governmental control.

Public participation on a global basis should reflect this underlying premise of ICANN's structure. Thus, although governments, through the GAC, may indirectly reflect the views of their citizens, and thus provide another vehicle for indirect public participation in ICANN, this is again a highly restricted form of participation by the public.

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