ICANN Stakeholder Group Charter Injustices

["Dave Kissoondoyal" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN

The Internet Society Chapter of Mauritius is a member of the Non Commercial
Users Constituency (NCUC).

The Internet Society Chapter of Mauritius would like to express our deep
disappointment with the unjust manner in which previous public comment
(period ending 15 April 2009) was discarded by ICANN in the reformulation of
the proposed Noncommercial Stakeholder Group Charter.

NCUC undertook months of consultations with a diverse range of parties in
the creation of its draft charter proposed for a Noncommercial Stakeholder
Group (NCSG).  NCUC participated in an extended consensus process that
involved global civil society, ICANN board, staff, members of the At-Large
community, and other non-commercial actors in the creation of the charter
submitted by NCUC in March 2009.

Civil society's NCSG charter was explicitly supported by over 80
non-commercial organizations and individuals in the April 2009 Public
Comment period.  Every single non-commercial organization that submitted a
comment during the period supported NCUC's charter and asked ICANN not to
force non-commercial users into constituencies for electing leadership
positions. 

During discussions at the March 2009 ICANN meeting in Mexico, NCUC
specifically asked ICANN if the NCSG charter it was drafting was
inconsistent with the report of the ICANN Board Structural Improvements
Committee (SIC) and NCUC was told its draft charter was not inconsistent.

Yet in June, without any explanation or regard for democratic or bottom-up
processes, ICANN staff and Board SIC threw out the consensus charter that
civil society developed and replaced it with an entirely different model --
the silo-model that civil society explicitly said would stranglehold
non-commercial users in policy development. 

We are of the opinion that ICANN's Proposed Silo-Model is Bad for
Noncommercial Users

NCUC and civil society made numerous efforts in public statements in April
09 to explain why the silo-model of governance being imposed by ICANN harms
non-commercial interests in the overall GNSO policy process. Yet these
concerns remain unanswered by ICANN.

In particular, ICANN's attempt to divide the GNSO Council and Executive
Committee seats among arbitrary (and board-selected) constituencies within
the NCSG encourages competition among constituencies, while an entire
stakeholder group wide election (as proposed by civil society) encourages
consensus building and cooperation between constituencies to elect NCSG
representatives.  Noncommercial users will be in a constant stranglehold
with each other, competing for scarce resources and representation, and will
remain ineffective in the larger GNSO policy negotiations, if the
ICANN drafted charter is allowed to replace the consensus charter drafted by
Noncommercial users.

We are stressing that ICANN should listen to Noncommercial users and finally
respect our democratic wishes regarding a governance structure that advances
non-commercial interests.  Thus ICANN should seriously reconsider its
attempt to impose a controlling top-down charter on Noncommercial users
against their expressed will.

We recommend to the ICANN Board that it reconsiders the NCUC's NCSG Charter
proposal. We are of the view that if ICANN were to adopt the NCUC's NCSG
Charter, this would signal to civil society that ICANN takes civil society
participation seriously. This is an opportunity for ICANN as an institution
to take forward the GNSO reforms on a positive basis.

Respectfully submitted,

Dave Kissoondoyal
President
Internet Society Chapter of Mauritius.