[gnso-review-dt] Personal comment on newest revision of the Westlake review
These comments are my own personal comments and do not reflect a
negotiated set of comments from amongst the NCSG members of the Working
party.
While I can personally support most of the recommendations made by
Westlake in the report, I do have questions and concerns with some of
the discussions in document. First I will mention the specific
recommendations for which I have questions, later I list comments based
on their page number.
*
Rec 22 seems too limited. Shouldn’t the GNSO council also concern
itself with the subject having been adequately covered. More
discussion below.
*
Rec 26 seems to include the issue that the rules for new
constituencies have not been followed.
While Westlake, and many others, do not like the rules as established by
the Board’s SIC, I do not believe there is evidence of those rules
having be flaunted or otherwise ignored.
It should also be noted that the methods for initiating new
constituencies was only created for the NCPH and not for the CPH. So
perhaps a recommendation needs include some discussion of creating a set
of rules applicable to both houses equally.
I agree that the default should include creating the new constituencies,
though perhaps we need a lighter weight notion of constituency that is
topical or based on interest, that is easier to create and sunset. I
also believe that constituency creation needs to be done according to a
set of rules and that they need to be created in the proper stakeholder
groups. I think the evidence of the possible constituencies Westlake
discussed is that they did not apply to the correct stakeholder group.
One could question whether the current setup of the GNSO allowed any
proper place for these constituencies.
An issue that could be discussed is whether the division of the GNSO in
4 SG, leaves some organizations homeless as they may either fit into any
of the 4 SGs, or may be hybrid organizations that cannot find a home in
a strictly segmented set of stakeholder groups. Is there a SG for every
possible constituency?
*
Page 13
Complexity deters newcomers.
Is the report assuming that complexity can be removed, or that it be
mitigated by better explanations.
*
Page 14
In addition, the current structure of the GNSO has been in place for
only about three years. From the Westlake Review Team’s professional
experience of structural change in many organisations of differing
types, this represents only a relatively short time for it to become
firmly established and for people to be fully familiar with it.
The review could also have included an analysis of why such an
oppositional organization arrangement was a good thing that should be
allowed to become firmly established. I question the degree to which the
deleterious effects have been adequately studied. In most all of the
organization dynamics literature I have ever read, there is a negative
effect to creating a set of oppositional structures, as was done in the
past GNSO reform. Westlake could have done a great service by including
an analysis of this situation and the many ways in which this
oppositional setup has affected the GNSO. Yes, we have learned to live
with it, but largely we do that by avoiding the contentious issues as
much as possible. Even Section 9 of the Westlake report that has an
extensive discussion of the structural issue does not recommend further
study.
Since Westlake does not wish to recommend further work on this subject,
I recommend that the GNSO Review Party make its own recommendation vis a
vis further work on this topic. Various members of the Board have been
quite outspoken on the idea that in the ICANN bottom-up model, if we
don’t like the structure, then we should recommend a way to fix it. We
do not need a review or a SIC to give us permission to fix what needs to
be fixed. We should just do it. Perhaps this is an issue that needs to
be taken to GNSO Council.
*
Page 40
The ATRT2 figures are from 2013. Has there been any work done to check
and see whether there has been any change since then or what the rate of
change is?
*
Page 43,
The description of the Policy & Implementation team work seems
incomplete and dated. Might be worth giving a timestamp for when that
description was made.
*
Page 50
The average length of a PDP is between 2 and 3 years
All the other figures in that section appear to be in days. Would be
interesting to know what the actual average was in days. 2-3 years is
such a wide range. Standard deviation would also be interesting. This
comments also relates to the charts on Section 9. At the very least,
there should be annotation that this data come from before outreach and
does not show any effects that might have been achieved by the outreach
program.
*
Page 71
Among the things I have assumed the council should ensure, in addition
to those listed, is that all of the issues have had a full exploration
and that the opinions of all stakeholders as is possible has been taken
adequately into account. As this does not figure on the Westlake list,
I am wondering whether they consider this an inappropriate activity for
the council. Does Westlake consider it appropriate for the GNSO council
to send a report back to a WG if they feel the work has not been
complete in respect to diversity of view or full discussion of
substance? There are issues concerned with the substance of an issue,
yet Westlake seems to indicate that the council should have no concern
for the substance.
*
Page 72
We acknowledge that the Board is the peak governing body of ICANN, so it
would be inappropriate to limit its authority
The current CWG Accountability has taken issue with a structure where
the Board is supreme in all substantive issues. Would Westlake see this
as inappropriate?
*
Page 81
Following the BGC WG review, but before the new and final Constituency
process was implemented (2011), staff developed a two-step process
(Notice of Intent to form a New Constituency, New Constituency petition
and Charter applications) for new constituency applications
The Westlake does not note that this procedure was created only for the
NCPH. There is not such procedure for creating constituencies in the
CPH. It has never been clear why such a policy should only apply to
half of the GNSO. Does Westlake have any input on this situation? Did
it figure into the analysis?
*
Page 82
and took no action on the Consumer Constituency as it was still being
worked on
It should be noted that while the candidate constituency still exists in
the NCSG, and it still holds observer seats in all NCSG committees as
defined in the NCSG Charter, it has not been active in years. Despite
this, no attempt has been made to end its candidacy. Several attempts
have been made to resurrect it, and some NCSG members still hold out
hope for it (I am a NCSG member of the candidate Consumer constituency
as well as of NCUC and supported its creation) completing the ICANN
policy and NCSG charter’s required activities for full status. Would
seem appropriate to discuss the case completely as opposed to allowing
it to appear that this was somehow a prejudicial act by the NCSG.
*
Page 83
In the discussion of the Cybercafe constituency applications Westlake
avoids several salient facts:
*
The NCSG charter, as approved by the ICANN Board, as well as the
defined process for creating new constituencies requires the
constituencies not only be appropriate to the SG group to which they
are applying, i.e be non commercial in the NCSG or be commercial in
the CSG, but that there should not be an overlap with existing
constituencies.
*
The statement related to the fact that if the applicants of the
Cybecafe had paid attention to the requirements for the NCSG, they
would have realized that as commercial entities they were not
qualified for the Non Commercial SG. This was backed up by the Board.
Again this makes the NCSG look like it did some inappropriate when it
was following procedures and its own Board approved charter.
Does Westlake recommend that:
*
It is ok to put commercial constituencies in the NCSG and non
commercial constituencies in the CSG?
*
It is ok to create constituencies with overlapping mandates on the
same SG?
Does Westlake have a recommendation for how to handle groups that file
an intent to form a constituency without being fit for any of the four
existing SGs?
*
Page 85
What evidence is there to substantiate:
- Less ‘pure’ or altruistic motives, such as protecting one’s own
position, status in the GNSO/ICANN community (or with an employer), or,
− In other instances, individual concerns that if someone new comes in,
the replaced incumbent will lose their own travel funding, regardless of
the GNSO’s greater interest of having the most appropriate people for
the role – rather than just those who can defend their positions the
most effectively.
What Westlake interprets as ‘protecting a patch’ may just be a strong
feeling in support of adhering to the processes as negotiated and agreed
to by constituencies, stakeholder groups and the Board. To indicate
otherwise based on hearsay and without adequate substantive proof is
somewhat disparaging of hard working sincere individuals. While this
may indeed occur, I am also not well placed to judge the intentions of
others, it seems inappropriate to include such claims in a review.
Isn’t it enough to say that not enough has been done to create new
constituencies without casting aspersions on a population of hard
working volunteers? Such evaluations, albeit very general and not about
any individual or SG, seems like they should be avoided in a review.
*
Page 91
NPOC is used both as an example of the only new constituency chartered
and as a bludgeon against the NCSG. Yes, there have been, and
occasionally still are rough times between the sister non commercial
constituencies. But we work together and produce substantive NCSG
statements that include the support of both constituencies, our
candidate constituency and individuals. Not only did we successfully
negotiate the creation of this new constituency according to rules that
were being developed as part of the process itself, the NCSG charter was
written with a full set of appeals for any occasion in which a
constituency, or any group of participants, felt that the NCSG Committee
decisions treated them unfairly or improperly. Initiating these NCSG
appeals takes a very low threshold (15 members out of hundreds), yet not
a single appeal has been initiated since the charter was approved in 2011.
A claim is also made about the lack of new leadership in the NCUC and
the NCSG. If one were to look at the leadership of the NCSG, or NCUC
for that matter, more than half got involved with ICANN in the last few
years. Many are newcomers in their first 2-3 years of participation in
the NCSG. Yes some of us old timers still hold posts, but we are by no
means the majority. Many of our senior members work in the background on
WGs and CWGs and penning draft statements without holding a leadership
post. Many of the senior people long for a new younger generation to
take of the SG and actively recruit replacements for the roles they
hold. Would have been good to see that accounted for in the analysis.
*
Page 113
I believe in the discussion of the GNSO as an artificial construct
Westlake makes a category error. But first, in a sense all of the SOAC
are essentially artificial constructs that have evolved over the course
of years to reflect the reality of participation. The category error
has to do with comparing the GNSO to the ALAC. That is wrong. The GNSO
is to the GNSO Council as the At-Large is to the ALAC. One cannot
compare the GNSO with the ALAC, though they could compare the GNSO
Council to the ALAC. As someone who participates in both the At-large
,and the GNSO, I believe there is very little difference between the
relationship among the RALOs of the At-large and the relationship among
SGs of the GNSO. I see them as similar structure, though along
different discrimination lines, geography and interest. This is not to
say wee don’t need better communication across the silos, but merely to
argue that the GNSO is not that different in this respect of other
organizations that have a layers internal structure.
*
Page 116
I find the appropriation of Sir Winston’s adage a bit overstated in
relation to the GNSO. He was talking about Democracy. While the quote
can be appropriately applied to something as fundamental as the
multistakeholder model of participatory democracy, I find its
application to the GNSO a bit puzzling. Even if the quote did not
trivialize the original utterance, I see little basis for a judgement
that many other schemes have been tried and been shown to be wanting.
Despite my comments, I want to reiterate that I take little issue with
the specific recommendations. I thank the Westlake Review team for
having produced a mostly balanced 2nd revision of their report and for
giving us yet another chance to review their work before it is submitted.
Avri Doria
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