Comments on ICG evaluations of numbers proposal

["Richard Hill" <rhill@xxxxxxxxx>]

I note that two evaluations of the numbers proposal have been posted to the
ICG list, respectively by Paul Wison and Wolf-Ulrich Knoben

  http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/internal-cg/2015-January/002715.html

  http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/internal-cg/2015-January/002725.html


As Paul states in his evaluation, he is Director General of APNIC. Since the
CRISP team included APNIC staff, it appears to me that Paul would not be
considered an independent reviewer if one applied the usual legal
understanding of independence.

I would have thought that the evaluations would be made by people who were
independent and impartial.

Be that as it may, both evaluations state that consensus was reached. This
is correct in the sense that there was consensus within the CRISP team. But
it is not correct regarding the wider community that commented on the
proposals: as both evaluations note, there were comments that were not
included in the final proposal.

Consensus is not a synonym for unanimity, and there are various
understandings of what constitutes consensus in the absence of unanimity.
But I don't know of any understanding, practice, or definition that would
lead to the conclusion that there was consenus of the global
multi-stakeholder community for the CRISP proposal.  There was consensus
within the CRISP team, but that is a different matter.

The co-chair of the ICG has stated:

"Richard Hill’s comments (and Guru Acharya’s point #4) re-raise substantive
issues that were discussed during the development of the proposal and did
not achieve consensus."

See http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/internal-cg/2015-February/002842.html

Thus it cannot be disputed that consensus was not achieved.

Both evaluations state that the proposal is complete.  I disagree: important
elements are not included. This is not disputed, indeed the CRISP team
itself admits that further work will be needed to finalize the transition
arrangements, see:

  http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/internal-cg/2015-January/002715.html

Thus it cannot be disputed that the proposal is not complete.

Sincerely,
R. Hill