Summary - Analysis of Comments in Public Forum - GNSO Constituency Renewals 2009
Summary and analysis of public comments for: GNSO Constituency Renewals 2009 Comment period ended: 25 February 2009 Summary published: 26 February 2008 Prepared by: Robert Hoggarth, Senior Policy Director I. BACKGROUND As part of the comprehensive GNSO Improvements effort, last Summer the ICANN Board directed existing GNSO Constituencies to report their adherence to ICANN's Bylaws by submitting confirming documents in advance of the February 2009 Board meeting. The Board believed that the submissions offered existing constituencies the opportunity to demonstrate their compliance with the Bylaws through their organizational structures, practices and processes. The Board also established a new requirement that GNSO Constituencies recognized by the Board formally confirm their status every 3 years to ensure that they continue to meet the requirements of Article X, Section 5, subsection 3 of the ICANN Bylaws regarding the principles of representativeness, openness, transparency and fairness. The Board directed the ICANN Staff to help with this effort by designing and developing a streamlined process and appropriate mechanisms to assist with the Board's timely recognition and approval of the existing constituencies. The re-confirmation of existing IGNSO Constituencies is an important part of the overall GNSO Improvements Implementation effort. The existing constituencies will be the foundational structures for new Stakeholder Groups that are being created as part of the GNSO Improvements effort. They will also play a critical ongoing role in the functions of the GNSO. It is important that the constituencies remain committed to the principles of representativeness, openness, transparency and fairness set forth in the ICANN Bylaws. Community feedback on the practices and processes of the existing GNSO constituencies and their adherence to the existing Bylaws is an important component of the Board's evaluations of these groups and any improvements that the Board may recommend. II. GENERAL COMMENTS and CONTRIBUTORS As of the 25 February 2009 deadline, a total of 5 community submissions have been made to this comment forum. The contributors, all individuals, are listed below in alphabetical order (with relevant initials noted in parentheses) : Eric Brunner-Williams (EBW) George Kirikos (GK) (2 comments) Jeffrey Williams (JW) Danny Younger (DY) III. SUMMARY & ANALYSIS Comments submitted to this public forum tended to address or be directed toward three main thematic areas - (1) the important need for transparency in all constituency activities; (2) specific comments about or criticisms of particular constituencies; and (3) recommendations or predictions of Board actions regarding the constituency submissions. Most of the comments were quite blunt and generally expressed significant skepticism regarding the ultimate value and results of the re-confirmation process. 1. The Need For Transparency The issue of transparency and how it should be measured or defined was the most referenced topic in the comments. JW says the single biggest problem with the GNSO and in particular with the existing constituencies, is that they are not open and transparent to non-constituency users/stakeholders. DY says that in an age when mp3 recordings are common and transcription services are available, constituencies should make a greater effort to operate in a transparent manner. GK says that in order to maximize transparency, renewals of each GNSO constituency should be conditioned upon their basic commitment to (1) maintain public mailing list archives; (2) provide public postings of constituency budgets; and (3) publish listings of all members of a constituency. He says many (if not all) of the constituencies fail to meet either some or all of the above standards. Public Mailing List Archives: GK says that public mailing list archives (and membership lists) allow the ICANN community and other observers to determine whether GNSO constituencies are truly representative of the communities they purport to represent. Public Posting of Constituency Budgets: GK says public posting of budgets ensures that constituencies are prudent in their spending, and allows the public to compare costs across all constituencies to ensure equal playing fields. GK says public budgets, financial statements and related financial disclosures are basics of good governance. He notes that ICANN itself has IRS Form 990 and other financial reporting obligations, and asserts that the bar should be set equally high for its policy making bodies. Public List of All Members of a Constituency: GK says some constituencies fail to list all their individuals or organizational members or keep their lists up-to-date. He says these lists are an important part of transparency in that they can help prevent constituency capture by certain organizations and can help to detect conflicts of interest. GK also says if a constituency's activities are dominated by a very small number of individuals or organizations, that could be evidence that it was not meeting the "representativeness" principle in ICANN's Bylaw requirements and greater membership outreach would be necessary. Similarly, he says, if weeks or months go by with very small levels of mail list posting activity or other dialogue between members, this would raise the question of whether that constituency is as engaged as it should be on the important matters of GNSO policy, and raise the question whether that constituency deserves to have continued voting representation on the GNSO Council. 2. Specific Observations About Particular Constituencies GK notes that currently, of all the constituencies, only the NCUC and ISCP constituencies have public mailing lists. With respect to the BC and ISCPC, DY says that, "after all these years, the BC still has no members in Latin America, none in Africa, and at most one or two in all of Asia." JW says the BC has never had a fully transparent discussion list. EBW says the findings published in Paris on the GNSO Council voting patterns show that for the purposes of policy advocacy, neither the BC or the ISCPC exist as independent sources of policy advocacy, and they "simply triple the IPC's votes on the GNSO Council." With respect to the IPC, DY says the IPC used to have a publicly archived member discussion list -- but it's now gone. With respect to the NCUC, DY says the Board should not re-certify the NCUC because the constituency has formally advised the Board that it intends to dissolve. With respect to Registrars, JW, GK and EBW all note that the Registrar Constituency used to have a public mailing list, but has since "gone private." EBW says the decision to transform the Registrar mailing list from an open discussion to an executive-committee-announce-only venue was "absurd", and moving all intra-registrar discussion to a non-public venue is simply "going the wrong direction." EBW says there is little policy discussion that informs votes on the RC's position on issues before the GNSO Council, constituency officer candidate statements, or discussion by non-candidate constituency members. With respect to the Registries, JW claims the registries have never had a fully transparent discussion list. Finally, JW suggests that there should be an independent Registrants Constituency. 3. Possible Actions by the Board As previously noted above, GK suggests that the Board set specific requirements that each constituency provide (1) public mailing list archives; (2) public postings of constituency budgets; and (3) a current public list of all members of the constituency. GK says those requirements should apply across all existing and future constituencies equally, and only then can ICANN be said to be ensuring that constituencies "shall operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner and consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness" as per the Bylaws. DY quotes the ICANN Bylaws and notes the language from Article X, Section 5, Subsection 3 that each constituency "shall maintain its recognition, and thus its ability to select GNSO Council representatives, only so long as it in fact represents the interests globally of the stakeholder communities it purports to represent, and shall operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner and consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness." DY says that existing GNSO constituencies have deliberately chosen to ignore the ICANN bylaws. He says the constituencies have learned that ICANN is rarely inclined to enforce the terms stipulated in its Bylaws. He says this is ICANN's opportunity to take corrective action but he doubts the organization will take appropriate measures. DY suggests that despite many shortcomings of the constituencies that are evident in their behavior with respect to transparency and openness, that ICANN "will doubtless re-certify them anyway" because "the Board is more interested in ticking off the boxes in the GNSO improvements schedule than in doing the right thing." IV. NEXT STEPS The ICANN Staff is currently in the process of reviewing the various submissions provided by the existing constituencies and plans to share all feedback with constituency leaders and the ICANN Board. In addition to summarizing the comments in this forum, the Staff will collect relevant community comments made on this issue in other public forums including those held during the ICANN Mexico City Meeting. The ICANN Board of Directors will subsequently review the Staff's analysis and comment on the submissions. The Board is likely to consider all the relevant community input and move forward with guidance for the community as soon as practicably possible. Any decisions with respect to the renewal of the existing constituencies will likely take place in the context of the GNSO Improvements implementation processes. Attachment:
Summary-Analysis of Community Comments On Existing Constituency Renewals - 2009 26 February 2009 FINAL.doc |