Re: [gnso-restruc-dt] Background on fundamental pre-conditions

[William Drake <william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Philip,

I wasn't around when you folks were hashing this out a year ago and am  
having difficulty understanding how the document you reference leads  
to the conclusions you're now drawing, so please help me out.
On May 8, 2009, at 2:22 PM, Philip Sheppard wrote:

> "Milton asked:
> Philip:Please inform this group of where this commitment (about NCUC  
> membership expansion)
> is articulated."
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Background note on current proposed structure of the GNSO
>
> The agreement by commercial users to transfer 3 commercial seats to  
> non-commercial users (in
> the existing reform proposal) has its origin in a joint paper from  
> the ALAC, NCUC, BC, IPC,
> and ISPs. That paper was called:
> "Joint Proposal from the User Community for GNSO Council structural  
> change April 2008".
> It was negotiated inter alia by Milton Mueller on behalf of NCUC.
>
> In the INTRODUCTION we find:
> "The role of individuals and the At-Large is inappropriately  
> curtailed in the governance
> committee proposal. Since ALAC is critical to ICANN’s external  
> perception this needs to be
> clarified".
Accordingly, as you note below, the proposal sensibly called for the  
commercial group to be open to commercially-oriented individuals such  
as consultants, and for the non-commercial group to be open to public  
interest-oriented individuals and individuals drawn from the RALOs.   
It did not call for renaming the NCSG to imply that individuals  
generally fit therein, or for curtailing the range of commercially- 
oriented individuals in the CSG.  And if there was no shared  
understanding to these effects then and there's zero chance of  
reaching consensus on them now, it's not obvious why we're spending  
cycles on this or should ask the board to consider it.
> In the BODY we find:
> "Non-commercial interest group The Board governance committee  
> recognized that it “must go
> far beyond the membership of the current Non-Commercial Users  
> Constituency.” ICANN has
> invested substantially in developing an At-large structure to  
> represent users. That
> investment should be leveraged".
Right, the future NCSG should go far beyond the current NCUC.  Nobody  
would be happier with that than the current NCUC; while we've been  
growing and diversifying (over 50 organizations, dozens of new  
individuals like me) via unsupported volunteer outreach, we'd love to  
see that trajectory accelerated.  Hence, our proposed charter makes it  
easy to join the NCSG, form constituencies, etc.  But how could this  
language possibly be interpreted to mean that the current NCUC was  
supposed to undergo the "root and branch change" you now demand as a  
precondition for the rebalancing of council seats?  Again, since your  
conclusion doesn't follow from the agreed text and cannot possibly  
give rise to consensus now, I don't understand why we're spending  
cycles on it or would want to waste the board's time with it.
> IN the ANNEX we find:
> "Non-Commercial Interest group. Principles
> §	The group should be an umbrella organization based on the non- 
> commercial
> constituency and incorporating At Large Structures, public-interest  
> oriented individuals and
> individuals drawn from the Regional At-Large Organisations with an  
> updated program and
> membership scope. The exact details of this can be determined after  
> the Board’s agreement to
> the concept in principle.
> §	At-Large has interests beyond GNSO policy so it is NOT intended to  
> formally merge
> the At Large Advisory Committee, ALAC, with this group. Indeed no  
> decision regarding GNSO
> Council restructuring should prejudice the role of any ICANN-wide  
> users’ entity".
All makes sense
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> It is this agreement to which the BC, IPC and ISPs refer when we  
> question whether this
> change in the NCUC has occurred.
Yes, but why?  The words don't say what you conclude.
> It may have done. It may be a communication issue.
Clearly there are communication issues.  For example, if you wanted to  
know what's going on within NCUC, you could have asked and then we'd  
have had a dialogue about it.  Might have been better than the  
exceptionally divisive path followed instead.
> But:
> a) we nor the Board have seen the evidence.
...that things that were not agreed or realistic as preconditions have  
occurred.
> b) it would be more indicative of change if the voices that told us  
> there has been change
> were today (May 2009) not the same ones as then (April 2008).
Said voices may read and respond more quickly and have a higher  
tolerance for this sort of thing, but there are in fact new voices,  
including two of our three councilors.  Was it also one of your  
preconditions that NCUC members who were involved then not speak now?
Why not dispense with the revisionist history and needless time  
consuming battles that can go nowhere, complete the proposed bylaws  
changes based on actual points of consensus, and move on to all the  
substantive work that's outstanding?
Sorry to be puzzled,

Bill


***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************