IANA Stewardship Transition 10-Year Anniversary
Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the IANA Stewardship Transition. On 1 October 2016, the IANA stewardship transition took effect. The U.S. government’s stewardship role ended, and the global Internet community took on responsibility for overseeing the IANA functions.
Most Internet users had no reason to notice. Websites loaded. Email arrived. The IANA functions continued to operate. That continuity was one of the requirements the people working on the transition had to meet.
The transition fulfilled a goal envisioned when ICANN was established in 1998. Nearly two decades of work followed, including the 2009 Affirmation of Commitments, which strengthened ICANN’s accountability and affirmed its multistakeholder model. In 2014, the U.S. government recognized ICANN’s maturity and asked it to convene the global Internet community to develop a transition proposal. Members of the ICANN community, ICANN org staff, and others across the wider Internet community contributed to the transition and the work needed to put it into effect.
Ending the U.S. government’s stewardship role prompted a separate discussion about how ICANN would be held accountable once the U.S. government’s historic backstop was gone. The community developed accountability reforms in parallel with the transition plan, giving it a more direct role in reviewing ICANN decisions.
The transition also recognized that the global Internet community and ICANN had matured enough to take on stewardship without the U.S. government’s historic role. The plan brought together arrangements and working relationships developed over nearly two decades, demonstrating how the multistakeholder model worked in practice. The IANA functions continued operating without interruption throughout the transition.
This 10th anniversary is an opportunity to recognize the people behind that work. We thank the community participants, ICANN org staff, technical experts, and Internet users who helped develop the proposal and prepare for the transition. They showed what the multistakeholder model can accomplish when people do the difficult work of reaching agreement and then put that agreement into practice.