[address-policy-wg] Re: Policy for allocation of IPv6 address space from IANA to RIRs

>   And on the other end: who/what watches the IANA and ICANN? This is
>   where I do see more single points of failure, and "procedures",
>   "double-checks" and "delays" than I see the risks with the RIRs.

Well, clearly ICANN and the U.S. watch the IANA because the IANA
an activity which the DOC subcontracts to ICANN to perform. The IANA
is not an organization and it has no independent status. It just happens
to be the historical name for some of the functions of ICANN so for
convenience and clarity, the name remains assigned to that set
of functions. For clarification read this contract that ICANN
has signed with the DOC on behalf of the U.S. Government.

That brings us back to ICANN. 

The ICANN of today is not the ICANN that was originally
created several years ago. A large part of the changes in
the structure and activity of ICANN have to do with
who watches ICANN. Read the bylaws and note that there
is provision for watchers who watch certain things related
to their expertise. Note the regular series of meetings
around the world so that external watchers have access
to ICANN in order to comment and raise issues. Note the
existence of organizations like the IETF and the NRO outside
the umbrella of ICANN but watching it and poking it where
needed.

As long as this unwieldy assemblage of organizations and
non-organizations continues to exist in more or less the
present form, I don't see any issues with watching ICANN.
If any weak points develop, someone/something will evolve
to fill them or fix them or whatever. I know that highly
educated technical people often cringe to see such an 
organizational architecture, but there is ample precedent
in the world to show that this is a valid way to build
an adaptable long-lived organization. For a similar example
you might want to do some research into the governance
structures of the organization popularly known as Oxford
University. The European Union is another similarly
complex beast when you look at it in its entirety, i.e.
including the national/federal governments, regional
governments and municipal governments.

--Michael Dillon