Re: [gnso-raa-b] RAA processes

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

On 21 May 2010, at 16:55, Mason Cole wrote:

> Finally, further to the current amendment effort, as I and our GNSO 
> councilors have stated any number of times, following the months-long 
> community consultation regarding possible RAA amendments, when it’s time to 
> negotiate the actual legal terms of the amended RAA, registrars will do so 
> with staff of the ICANN corporate entity only.  I’m aware that those not 
> party to the contract feel entitled to a presence in the negotiations on the 
> basis of being an “affected” party, but that is unpersuasive in the end.  

My problem with your treatise is what I perceive to be a misunderstanding about 
what ICANN is.  ICANN is the unity of the corporate staff with the volunteer 
staff.  For the Registrars to negotiate with ICANN, they must negotiate with 
all of ICANN and not just part of ICANN.  The strict diremption of ICANN 
corporate from ICANN is a whole, to my mind, not persuasive.

The Board that must approve any RAA contract can only be motivated by the 
informed and involved input of the GNSO and the rest of the community.  Unless 
the GNSO and the community are given their due as an integral part of ICANN, I 
do not understand how the negotiations can be anything by flawed.  

Additionally the insistence by the Registrars in one venue of being separate 
from the rest of ICANN and only willing to negotiate with ICANN corporate, and 
in another of being an indispensable and integral part of ICANN and of the 
Registry-Registrar equation is also very difficult to understand or 
rationalize.   The Registrars are either one among peers in their negotiation 
with the whole of ICANN, or they are something separate to be viewed as other 
than a necessary part of ICANN.

a.