Personal Statement on rights of incumbent constituencies to prevent creation of new constituencies.

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxx>]

To the Board,

I am concerned about the rights one set of incumbent constituencies is  
being given to prevent the creation and/or addition of other  
constituencies within their Stakeholder Group.  The specific language  
that concerns me can be found in the CSG charter:
4.2 Membership shall also be open to any additional constituency  
recognised by ICANN’s Board under its by-laws, provided that such  
constituency, as determined by the unanimous consent of the  
signatories to this charter, is representative of commercial user  
interests which for the purposes of definition are distinct from and  
exclude registry and prospective registry, registrar, re-seller or  
other domain name supplier interests.
This is in contrast with the provision in the NCSG charter:

2.2.1 Constituency Qualification and Recognition. NCSG Constituencies  
are approved by the ICANN Board and placed within the Stakeholder  
Group. The procedures for becoming a Board-recognized Constituency  
within the NCSG are contained in the ICANN Bylaws and other procedures  
approved by the Board.
To allow the incumbent constituencies the right of prior approval of  
new constituencies is a severe hindrance to the goal of outreach  
central to the BCG report as approved by the Board and is contrary to  
the spirit of the entire restructuring exercise.  It also usurps the  
power of the board in the expressing the decsion on whether a new  
constituency in the Non Contracted Parties house is to be approved.   
The way it is written any of the current CSG constituencies can black  
ball any new constituency - this is contrary to the sprit of  bottom  
up organization.
The clause in the CSG charter should be changed to be equivalent to  
the statement in the NCSG charter.

Thank you

Avri Doria
Nominating Committee appointee to the GNSO Council (2005-2009)
Individual Commercial Registrant (Independent Professional who is not  
part of a registered business)