Re: [alac] Council call

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2004-11-18 19:04:11 -0300, Sebastián Ricciardi wrote:

> Whoever might be the one that thinks that the council shouldn?t
> be involved in the process, 

The message certainly wasn't that the GNSO should stay out of this
(after all, the UDRP is a consensus policy adopted by the DNSO) --
it was more subtly hinted that this was not the time for Council to
come to a position, in particular without even knowing the WIPO
statement which is now available at the following URL:
<http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg00661.html>

> "Given the publication of the WIPO II Working Group Report, 

The ICANN WIPO II Working Group's report is, to the best of my
knowledge, not available to the public at this point.  This would by
itself be sufficient to make any substantive board action on WIPO II
entirely inappropriate, as policy actions ought to be posted at
least 21 days prior to board action.

> and having noticed certain concerns within the ICANN community
> regarding the proper policy development process, and the
> participation of the GNSO in it, the ALAC wishes to stress once
> again the utmost importance of the role that the GNSO has in the
> PDP. We believe (as we stated before, see
> http://alac.icann.org/correspondence/comment-wipo-13may03.htm)
> that it would be inappropriate for ICANN to assume the role of an
> international legislator, and to try to establish such new law
> through its contracts and policy processes. For this reason, any
> policy-making processes which are based upon WIPO's
> recommendations in the areas of the protection of IGOs' and
> countries' names must pay close attention to staying within the
> confines of supporting existing, internationally uniform law.
> That desn?t deny in any way the required participation of the
> GNSO in the matter, given an eventual Board resolution on the
> implementation of the WIPO II Report. In fact, any implementation
> of these matters will require a proper Policy Development
> Process, and the role of the GNSO in it is clearly stated in
> ICANN?s Bylaws."

It's not clear to me if we should once again at this point comment
on the substantive questions we have about WIPO2, or if it would be
better to focus our comment on the procedural side of immediate next
steps.

While talking on the procedural side, I would stress that the WIPO
II recommendations would affect all stakeholders in ICANN, including
individual Internet users, and that any policy action will have to
go through the GNSO's bottom-up consensus process (I know...), which
must pay due attention to individual Internet users' interests in
this.  Such process must pay close attention to ... - blah -

In other, less diplomatic words: Any substantive action by the board
on this would be inappropriate.  Instead, any substantive action
would require a GNSO policy development process, and the GNSO should
better involve ALAC with it.

The current text can be read as saying that Advisory Committees
should stay out of policy processes, and leave things to the GNSO.
This is, of course, not in ALAC's own interest...


(Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to participate in today's
conference call; a last-minute conflict came up which will most
likely keep me on a different call.)
-- 
Thomas Roessler · Personal soap box at <http://log.does-not-exist.org/>.