[ALAC] ICANN Board Meeting tomorrow

[Alan Greenberg]

>At 27/08/2008 11:21 AM, Wendy Seltzer wrote:
>ICANN's board will meet tomorrow, with an agenda including 
>substantial discussion of the GNSO Council Restructuring.  If there 
>are points to be added to that discussion, beyond those already 
>raised regarding the importance of making room for Internet *users* 
>on the Council (which I will re-emphasize), please let me know.

Wendy, my understanding was that the Board generally accepted the 
GNSO working group report which made a strong statement for "users" 
instead of registrants. So hopefully that one is a done-deal. If it 
raised its ugly head again, then I hope you will address it.

Over and above that, the ALAC submitted a document endorsing and 
further elaborating on our statement appended to the WG report. It 
went well beyond what was said in the WG report comment, most 
particularly related to how we envisage users participating in the 
GNSO Non-commercial Stakeholders Group and what the Board must do to 
help ensure that it works. It was sent to the Board (via John 
Jeffrey) on Aug. 13. I trust you have a copy of that.

We had planned to formally address some of the questions that were 
put by Denise on behalf of the Board.  Unfortunately, it did not get 
addressed, buy you can find a list of what we were planning to 
address at 
https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?alac_comments_on_board_questions_regarrding_gnso_restructuring 
- also reproduced here for your convenience. I have heard NO negative 
comments on the proposal from any ALAC members.

Most of the questions were already addressed in our previous 
document. The only question that we had not previously been addressed 
is the one on outside perceptions of complexity (the 5th question). 
We had already alluded to the answer, but to be clear, yes, this 
added complexity will not only impact internal workings and the need 
for more volunteer effort, but will add some confusion to those outside.

Alan

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In response to the working group report on GNSO Restructuring, the 
Board has asked the ALAC for comments on a number of issues. Below 
are the questions and Alan's suggested replies.




Implications regarding the selection of Board seats

Currently, Board members are elected by the entire GNSO Council. It 
has been perceived that this has led (unfairly) to Board members 
always coming from the Registrar/Registry community. The new proposal 
has each House electing its won Board member with the condition that 
both Board members cannot "come from" a user background, and both 
cannot come from the registrar/registry background. This is 
problematic, because it means that each Board member does not really 
represent the entire GNSO Council as envisioned by the Bylaws. After 
the fact, it was also realized that there may be no easy way to 
transition to this model.

Various methods have been suggested that each House nominates 
candidates, but both houses vote. But this was not accepted.

Our statement (if approved) already addresses this question.



Implications of new voting thresholds for policy development and 
other Council operating matters and how they compare with current 
voting thresholds

The thresholds seem to be a reasonable compromise amongst the 
existing GNSO constituencies and the ALAC has no specific problem 
with them. It is possible that they will prove to be unmanagable in 
some cases, but that is hard to predict one way or another.



Consideration of implications regarding the future roles ofNominating 
Committee appointees, which may create pivot points because of the 
"simple majorities" in the proposed new thresholds

As indicated in ALAC statement, we regret the disenfranchisement of 
one NomCom appointee, and the possible dilution of voting rights of 
the two others. We are not immediately worried about swing votes in 
majority-class votes.



Consideration of the potential effects of various stakeholder 
representation options proposed by the working group

As per the ALAC statement, we favour the lower ranges of suggested 
stakeholder group sizes. this will likely impact the number of 
councillors per current commercial constituencies, but all others 
will remain the same or grow. If and when new constituencies are 
added, finding a way to ensure that their views and need are 
represented on council my well be problematic, but that is a problem 
forced upon the GNSO by the stakeholder group model forced by the BGC report.



Evaluation of whether the proposed Council structure will be 
understandable to the outside community and open enough to encourage 
formation and participation of new constituency groups; and

Although the final proposal is less complex that some of those 
considered by the working group, the new concept of both houses and 
stakeholder groups does add significant complexity from an outsider's 
point of view and even to those inside of ICANN. As noted in the ALAC 
statement, this multiple hierarchy organization will complicate both 
the formation of constituencies, and the management of them. Explicit 
actions will need to be taken to minimize the impact.



Consideration of transition issues and how transition could occur in 
an orderly and predictable manner.

The proposed council is sufficiently different that clearly By-Law 
changes are required, including revamping of at least part of the PDP 
By-Laws. It is hard to understand how the new structure could 
function prior to such changes.