Here we send our comments on At Large. The members who created this
Comments were:
Hiro Hotta
Tsugizo Kubo
Yumi Ohashi
Shinichi Kondo
Hirofumni Kurokawa
Takashi Arano
Please
note that the comments were elaborated in very limited
amount of time, so further
discussion should be convened.
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Comment
on At Large
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Conclusion:
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1.
We basically support the idea of At Large.
2.
First of all, the nature of At Large, its purpose and role, should be
re-evaluated.
After that, decisions on details such as the appropriate
number of members should
be dealt with. To be precise, "question e"
should be primarily discussed.
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Discussion:
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Supposing
that the following assumption on the purpose and role of At
Large are fulfilled,
our argument below progresses.
Assumption:
a) Role of
the At Large is to audit the opinion of the nine
representatives of each Supporting
Organization(SO).
b) Followings are assumed premise to the above statement.
-SO does not represent the entire interest or the whole stake-holders.
-At Large Directors represents the individual, and not the organization.
Following
answers to questions a-e are based on the assumption of the above
mentioned
role
and condition of the At Large Directors.
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a.
Should the ICANN Board include At Large Directors?
We discussed counter-plan
to establish the new auditors or advisory
committee. However, in order to perform
its audit function at the most, it is
essential that the auditors/committee should
have both the authority
and duty to state their views to the Board, which is the
final decision organ.
After all, the most simple and practical solution we
reached is not to
establish a new organization, but to authorize the stated function
to the
At Large Directors.
Also, it is better to include the At Large Directors
in the ICANN
Board to bring the variety of ways of thinking into the Board.
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b:If
so, how many such At Large Directors should there be?
Nine would be the ideal
number that enables them to function as an
audit organ capable of overturning
the SO Directors' opinion.
Yet on the other hand, concerning the current consensus
building of
the ICANN Board, we think it is more important that the Board has
a
variety of insights and opinions, rather than being influenced by
numbers.
Consequently,
we suggest to be chosen five directors from each of the
ICANN designated regions
of the world. However, whether the number
"5" is appropriate or not should be
discussed further considering the
population or the number of (potential) Internet
users.
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c:How
should any such At Large Directors be selected?
plus
d: If selection
by an At Large membership is recommended, what
processes and procedures should
be used to create that At Large
membership? What minimum criteria, if any, should
be required for
membership? Precisely how should an At Large membership select
At
Large Directors?
Even if indirect election were adopted, At Large Members
would be
selecting the representatives, therefore similar problems would
rise
again.
Moreover, it may cause extra problems such as allocating a number of
Representatives
to each constituency.
Therefore, we concluded that a direct election is the
best and most
simple way to be conducted.
As for the membership requirement,
we support the existing one.
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e:
If an At Large membership is to exist, what should its
structure, role and functions
be?
We suggest collecting a minimum amount of membership fee to ensure
members
being liable and aware of issues.
Collected fees should be used for fair election
operation, and for
providing related information or arranging meetings.
From
the view of equality, Membership fee should be decided, depending
on GDP or the
other related figures, however we have not reached a
concrete conclusion yet.
As
for the role of At Large Directors, it is the top priority to be
discussed again,
thus we commented at the outset of this document.