Registrar Constituency Position re Travel Support Procedure
Registrar Constituency Position re ICANN Travel Support Procedure
June 11, 2008
BACKGROUND
In May 2008, the Registrar Constituency ("RC") was asked to provide comments
regarding ICANN's proposed Travel Support Procedure ("Travel Procedure").1
During
the two months prior to ICANN's request for comments, the members of the RC
discussed possible Travel Procedures at length. Accordingly, this Position
Paper captures
the overall sentiment expressed by the RC members who provided feedback about
this
matter and this Position Paper seems to reflect the general sense of the RC.
However,
due to time constraints, no formal vote regarding this Position Paper was taken.
POSITION
The RC opposes ICANN's proposed Travel Procedure. In short, a majority of RC
members that responded to an informal survey argue that:
1. ICANN should not, under any circumstances, provide travel support to Council
Members.
The RC members who advocate this position seek to contain ICANN's "ever
increasing
budget", and believe that registrants should not be burdened by funding travel
expenses
for Council Members who represent the narrow interests of constituencies which
are
comprised of large, well capitalized organizations.
Furthermore, RC members advocating this position believe that Council Members
have
excellent track records of attending live meetings and will continue to attend
these
meetings regardless of whether ICANN funds their travel expenses. To that end,
several
RC members believe that attendance by Council Members at live meetings will
continue,
at least in part, because their travel tends to be funded by the private
organizations for
which the Council Members are employed.
Alternatively, RC members argue that:
2. If ICANN insists on providing travel support, then it should provide modest
financial support to each constituency, as opposed to the GNSO in general, and
each constituency should have the authority to allocate that support among its
members and representatives for travel or other constituency needs.
In its proposal, ICANN allocates $184,800 to the GNSO for Councilor travel and
charges
the GNSO itself with the responsibility of dividing this funding between
Councilors.
However, instead of charging the GNSO with the responsibility of deciding which
Councilors receive funding, RC members who support this alternative position
believe
that constituencies themselves should be responsible for distributing the
funding.
Supporters of this alternative position recognize that each constituency has
unique needs;
not only with respect to travel, but also with respect to carrying out
day-to-day
constituency related functions. As such, this position permits constituencies
the
flexibility to use support funds to defray those travel costs or other expenses
a particular
constituency deems important, independent of how other constituencies may be
utilizing
their respective support funds.
For example, the RC might prefer to use these resources to enable its advocate
or
assistant to attend an ICANN meeting instead of its Councilors, who receive
travel
funding from their employers.
The RC members who have expressed support for this opinion believe that an
accounting
mechanism should be adopted by the constituencies to ensure that the funds are
put to
appropriate use and subject to appropriate ICANN-expense policies.
Because the bulk of the Travel Procedure discussion among RC members was
focused on
the narrow topic of travel support for only Council Members, rather than travel
support
for supporting organizations in general, this Position Paper is concentrated on
that
particular question, with only minimal attention paid to other Travel Procedure
issues.
The RC notes with great interest, however, that ICANN's proposed Travel
Procedure
provides that the ccNSO members receive an almost equal travel allocation
relative to the
GNSO, notwithstanding the fact that the ICANN budget contemplates that the gTLD
registrants/registrars/registries fund over 93% of ICANN's budget and the ccTLD
registrants/registrars/registries only fund less than 4%.
Some RC members also recommend using ICANN's budget for "Broadening
Participation" to create an "outreach fund" through which some members of the
GNSO
community may apply for travel assistance on a needs basis. The purpose of such
a fund
would be to ensure that non-profit participants of the GNSO and other community
members who need financial assistance would still be able to participate in the
work of
the GNSO. Partial and complete funding requests may be fulfilled depending on
the
nature of the request, demonstrated need, etc.
Finally, the RC strongly believes that ICANN should further investigate
improved remote
access and participation technologies to reduce meeting attendance costs and
encourage
more members of the community to participate in ICANN meetings.
CONCLUSION
The RC opposes ICANN's proposed Travel Procedure, but if ICANN insists on
providing travel support then modest financial support should be provided to
each
constituency and each constituency should have the authority to allocate that
support
among its members and representatives for travel or other constituency needs.
The opinions expressed by the RC in this Position Paper are the opinions of the
RC as a
whole, and should not be interpreted to reflect the individual opinion of any
particular RC
member.
1 See ICANN's Proposed Travel Support Procedure available at:
http://www.icann.org/topics/travelsupport/
draft-procedure-22may08.htm. (last visited June 11, 2008).
Attachment:
RC Position re Travel Support Procedure 2-2.pdf |