Statement of the NCUC on ICANN's Travel Funding Proposal

[Robin Gross <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Statement of the NCUC on ICANN's Travel Funding Proposal

          ICANN is currently revisiting its policy on providing  
support for travel expenses. Currently, ICANN supports the travel of  
the ICANN Board, ALAC officers, NomCom, and NomCom appointees to  
supporting organizations, including the GNSO.  GNSO Council members  
appointed by the constituencies have not been supported. The travel  
expenses of the councilors of these organizations are inherent costs  
of ICANN's work, and paying these expenses should be a priority use  
of ICANN's resources.  Currently ICANN is subsidized by volunteer  
councilors who provide not only their personal time and effort, but  
also the funds to travel to meetings on the other side of the world.
          This change is especially important as the GNSO moves to  
restructure its constituencies and strives to increase participation  
by individuals.  High costs present a bar to participation.  Those  
costs may well seem reasonable or incidental to those parties who  
have a large direct financial interest in ICANN policy, but they are  
disproportionately burdensome to individuals and non-commercial  
parties who seek the promote the public interest within ICANN.  Since  
NCUC is the only constituency not supported by commercial interests  
and large industries, the under-funding of the GNSO has been the  
single most significant barrier to NCUC participation in ICANN policy  
making.  ICANN is financially self-sufficient and should bear the  
costs of its own operation.  Otherwise, only those who can routinely  
pay thousands of dollars to participate in policy discussions will be  
able to influence ICANN policy-making.
          ICANN should fund the reasonable travel expenses of all  
GNSO councilors, who are all needed to carry out ICANN’s policy  
work.  The current proposal to pay the travel expenses of half of the  
councilors is both insufficient and potentially divisive and  
discriminatory.  Funding some of the councilors leaves the process  
open to gamesmanship and favoritism; it also waste’s the Council’s  
time by giving it another contentious decision to make.  Face-to-face  
council meetings are essential to the work of the GNSO, and the  
expense of keeping the GNSO running is as much a cost of ICANN's  
operation as the travel expenses of the Board or SO chairs.
The Internet community would not accept a policy in which only half  
of the board members were funded to participate in board meetings,  
but ICANN proposes providing support for only half of the GNSO  
Council to participate in policy meetings.  The GNSO is supposed to  
represent all of the various stake-holders or interest groups who  
belong at the table in Internet policy negotiations.  As the  
supposedly “bottom-up” part of ICANN, the GNSO should be a fully- 
funded and fully-supported organization within ICANN.  Otherwise, all  
the talk about “bottom up” policymaking at ICANN is empty rhetoric  
meant only for press releases, while the same commercial and  
governmental interests continue to dominate actual policy decisions.




IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
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