NomCom Review, Section 1
This is the first of two, or perhaps three, comments for the record on the Draft Report (DR) of the NomCom Revew Finalization Working Group. This comment is directed to the text of the DR, Section 1. Background:1. Rather than leaving something as central to the activities of the NomCom as its role in selecting persons to be seated as voting members of the GNSO Council, where the role of the NomCom appointees has been profoundly affected by the inabilities of the stalemated parties, the IPC and its captured "Constituencies" (see the voting correlations materials presented at ICANN XX?, Paris, March 2008, for supporting facts in evidence for that observation) and the Registry and Registrar Constituencies, to arrive at mutually beneficial outcomes of superficial conflicts, a situation alleviated only in theory by the delegation of policy from the GNSOC to working groups, and the change of form of the GNSOC from a unicameral body to a bicameral body, and its role in selecting persons to be seated as voting members of the CCNSO Council and the At Large Advisory Council, burried in a footnote reference to Art. VII of the Bylaws, this could be enumerated. 2. Prior findings of Reviews, undertaken "to determine (i) whether that organization has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure", such as the determination that the Protocol Supporting Organization had no continuing purpose in the ICANN structure", would be helpful to provide institutional context of reviews. 3. The members of the Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) -- a standing Committee of the Board, should be identified. Similarly, the ICANN member of staff tasked as Director for Organization Review should be identified. Chronology:1. The March 2007 Board selection of Alejandro Pisanty (chair), Peter Dengate-Thrush, Njeri Rionge, Mouhamet Diop, Jonathan Cohen and Steve Goldstein may be exhaustive, but the phrase "which included the following individuals" allows for the possibility that one or more persons were selected by Board in March 2007, but which for unstated reasons, are not identified in the 23 September 2009 DR. This ambiguity should be clarified. 2. A potential weakness in this specified NomCom Review WG is its balance. Peter and Jonathan have been involved in ICANN since the "new entity" formation period, as advocates for intellectual property interests, as has Alejandro Pisanty. All three share time-zone and network (voice and data) infrastructure to allow effective remote participation. While Njeri Rionge, Mouhamet Diop and Steve Goldstein are more diverse, as only Njeri is from an intellectual property background, both Njeri and Mouhamet do not share time-zone and network (voice and data) infrastructure to allow effective remote participation. The WG was skewed through composition towards plankholder/IPC/North American preferences in its review frame of reference. 3. The plural "external reviewers" is used when describing the period following public comments. If the plural is ment to indicate an external reviewer other than Interisle, this unidentified party should be identified. 4. The significance of 2007 to explain the decision to delay publication of the report to the Board Governance Committee by the Pisanty chaired WG of March, 2007 should be made clear. Either there was process failure specific to the external review of the NomCom in 2007, resulting in the formation of the Roessler chaired WG of July, 2009, and its present report, or there was a broader process failure involving other Board created entities and the requirement for "consolidation", etc, resulting in the same WG's present report. 5. The SIC selection of Thomas Roessler (chair), Alejandro Pisanty (chair), Jonathan Cohen and Steve Goldstein, with George Sadowsky as a participating advisor, either codified or repeated the skew through composition towards shared time-zone and network (voice and data) infrastructure preferences. This concludes my comments on Section 1. Eric Brunner-Williams in a personal capacity |