Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) charter - Statement from Internet Governance Caucus

["Ian Peter" <ian.peter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To the ICANN Board:

 

The Internet Governance Caucus is the 200-member voice of civil society in
the Internet Governance Forum. It wishes to express its support for version
6.0 of the Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) charter developed by the
Noncommercial Users Constituency. While there may still be room for minor
improvements, we believe that the basic principles on which the charter is
founded provide the fairest and most effective basis for civil society
representation in ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization, within its
existing overall structure.

 

We specifically support the proposal because:

 

 * It was developed transparently and with many opportunities for input by
relevant ICANN participants;

 * It makes it easy to form constituencies or affinity groups, but avoids
fragmentation of noncommercial stakeholders into independent constituencies
with separate mailing lists, administrative structures and representatives;

 * It permits individual membership in the NCSG and does not require
individuals to fit themselves into arbitrarily-defined categories that may
not correspond to their interests and needs;

 * It fosters representation of minority viewpoints in consensus-based
Working Groups, but does not rigidly assign votes to small factions, instead
offering them a chance to build consensus.

We also note that the alternative charter proposal seems designed to give a
specific faction guaranteed Council seats and does not foster global,
geographically diverse representation. 

 

We appreciate ICANN's effort to make its GNSO more representative and urge
you to ratify and accept version 6.0 of the NCSG charter.

 

Ian Peter (Australia) and Virginia Paque (Venezuela, Diplo Foundation),
co-coordinators, IGC

 

The above statement was adopted consensually by our members. In addition,
the organizations and individuals listed below are members of and
participants in the civil society Internet Governance Caucus and have
specifically ask that we list their names as supporters: 

 

Baudouin Schombe, Coordonnateur National Reprontic, Coordonnateur Sous
Regional ACSIS/Afrique Centrale, Membre Facilitateur GAID Afrique 

IT for Change, Kerala, India 

Association for Progressive Communications, South Africa 

Dr. Hakikur Rahman, Chairman, SchoolNet Foundation, Bangladesh, and Post
Doctoral Fellow University of Minho, Portugal 

Fouad Bajwa, Punjab, Pakistan 

Tapani Tarvainen, Chairman, Electronic Frontier Finland 

Divina Frau-Meigs, Professor, Media Sociology, Université Sorbonne nouvelle;
Board Member, European Communication Research and Education Association,
Paris, France 

Lisa Horner, The Freedom of Expression Project, UK 

Jeanette Hofmann, London School of Economics, UK 

Lee McKnight, Syracuse University, USA 

David Goldstein, Australia 

Dave Kisoondoyal, Mauritius, Africa; Public Interest Registry Advisory
Council 

Willie Currie, APC 

Adam Peake, Tokyo, Japan 

Meryem Marzouki, Senior Researcher, French National Scientific Research
Center (CNRS), Paris, France 

Wolfgang Kleinwachter, Professor for International Communication Policy and
Regulation, Department for Media and Information Sciences of the University
of Aarhus, Denmark

Carlos Afonso, RITS Brazil

Iliya Bazlyankov, Bulgaria.

 

 

 

 

Ian Peter

PO Box 429

Bangalow NSW 2479

Australia

Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773

www.ianpeter.com