RE: [gnso-restruc-dt] RE: Draft Revisions Bylaws - GNSO Restructure

["Mary Wong" <MWong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In light of the Restructuring DT call next week, the NCUC would like to respond 
to some of the suggested Bylaw changes made by the BC, IPC and ISPC that were 
circulated on 21 April 2009, as follows:
 
I. The proposed revision to the Bylaws by the BC, IPC & ISPC in relation to the 
composition of the non-contracting house is untenable for the following reasons:
 
(1) A consensus working group, which representatives from these Constituencies 
participated in, has already agreed on a carefully structured balance between 
contracting and non-contracting houses. The same group has also agreed on 
parity between the two parts of each house (i.e. registries and 
registrars/commercial and noncommercial). Parity was also part of the BGC 
recommendations, and is reflected in both the BGC WG report of February 3, 2008 
(Section 5.3) and the Summary of Board Actions & GNSO Implementations document 
of November 1, 2008 (updated 23 January 2009) (Recommendation #4 concerning the 
GNSO Council in Appendix A, on page 13.) 
 
(2) At best, the current proposal flies in the face of these reports and the 
Board's endorsement of the parity principle; at worst, it represents a bad 
faith attempt to re-open a fundamental principle that the Board and the 
community have discussed and agreed upon.
 
II. The proposal to include the entire At Large, which includes commercial as 
well as noncommercial stakeholders, in the new Noncommercial Stakeholders Group 
(NCSG) seems to be another attempt to dilute or undermine parity and balance in 
the GNSO. 
 
This has little to do with encouraging or enabling individual membership and 
participation (which is already possible and should continue in the new GNSO.) 
Renaming only the NCSG to include "Individuals" suggests that there is no home 
anywhere else within the GNSO for them, which would exclude those individuals 
who have a commercial interest in DNS policy (e.g. domainers, consultants, even 
individual legal practitioners.) To the extent that the restructured GNSO is to 
facilitate increased and broad-based individual membership and participation, 
it makes far more sense for both commercial and noncommercial SGs to allow 
individual membership.  
 
III. Council seats should not be linked directly to Constituencies rather than 
SGs, 
 
This arrangement would not only create scalability problems (and potentially 
further Board action on restructuring within a very short period of time), it 
goes against the intention expressed in (among others) the BGC WG report that 
the Constituency structure needs to adapt in light of the move to (inter alia) 
a working group model, and be flexible and dynamic. Charter proposals for the 
NCSG are now before the Board. Determining representation structures within a 
noncommercial framework should not be the province of commercial stakeholders, 
who have an obvious conflict of interest in relation to the proposals addressed 
in this submission. 
 
Best regards,
Mary (on behalf of the NCUC)
 
 

Mary W S Wong

Professor of Law
Franklin Pierce Law Center
Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
USA
Email: mwong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Phone: 1-603-513-5143
Webpage: http://www.piercelaw.edu/marywong/index.php 
Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: 
http://ssrn.com/author=437584 

>>> "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 4/21/2009 3:27 PM >>>
I took up Avri's suggestion and prepared a red-line version of Philip's
document that will hopefully facilitate our discussion on the Bylaws
changes needed for Council restructure.

Thanks Philip for all the time you put into this.

Chuck 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gnso-restruc-dt@xxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-gnso-restruc-dt@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:23 AM
> To: Gnso-restruc-dt@xxxxxxxxx 
> Subject: [gnso-restruc-dt] RE: Draft Revisions Bylaws - GNSO 
> Restructure
> 
> 
> (i have moved this discussion to the restructuring list, as 
> that includes all council members as well as those others 
> from the constituencies who are acting as subs or additions from the
> constituencies)
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I tend to think we should just talk through each of the 
> proposed changes in order finding out which ones have 
> consensus, and then precede to further discuss the ones, 
> assuming there are some, that do not have consensus.
> 
> It might be good for other proposed stakeholder groups to 
> also redline the proposed by-laws, perhaps starting from 
> Philip's changes, so that we have a complete set of proposed changes.
> 
> As soon as we get a meeting scheduled for the restructuring 
> phone call, we should put this as the first item on the agenda.
> 
> a.
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2009-04-21 at 11:03 -0400, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
> > Thanks for the quick response.  In my opinion, I think it would be 
> > helpful to clearly identify any deviances from the Board approved 
> > recommendations and that we should handle those separately from the 
> > rest of the text.
> > 
> > Chuck
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> > > [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Philip Sheppard
> > > Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 10:51 AM
> > > To: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> > > Subject: RE: [council] Draft Revisions Bylaws - GNSO Restructure
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > One is certainly - as the Board recommendations were 
> predicated on 
> > > events that have not come to pass.
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 
> 
> the messages refered to and the edit can be foiund in: 
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg06676.html 
> 
> > 
> 
>