[At-Large] Geographic diversity in the NARALO

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

John and Alan, I stand corrected on the Bylaw provision. That said,
the requirement of different countries is present in all the other
regional MoUs.

As to your point about relative population, this could have been said
in other regions as well. China and India could have argued this point
in Asia, others in LAC, others still in Europe. Nobody has done so.

At the UN, voting could be based upon population, or economic output,
GDP, or other statistics but it is not; it is based upon the one
country, one vote principle. That is the principle which the
'residents or nationals' provision seeks to continue in ICANN.

ICANN, as everyone knows, has in the past been criticised for being
too US-centric, and also too Western-centric, as well as too
English-centric. I would ask you all to consider the message that
would be sent if North America were to adopt less diversity guarantees
than any other region.

'One man, one vote' is widely admired as a fundamentally important
principle. In international relations, the equivalent principle of
'one country, one vote' is also equally fundamentally important.

I have a query in on the geographic diversity provision and the
different countries question. I'll let everyone know what I hear
back...

On 19/05/07, John L <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:
> > Article 5.4.1 of our current MOU states:
> >
> > "Selected individuals must be individual members or members of different
> > At-Large Structures based in different countries in the North American
> > region, and they may not be citizens of the same country."
>
> Well, OK, now it's not in the bylaws, now it's in the proposed MOU.  I'm
> getting the impression this is a rule that someone made up one day and
> said "it's always been that way."  ICANN evidently places no requirements
> on RALO appointed members other than that they be residents of the region.
>
> As I hardly need to remind people, the NA region consists, unlike any
> other region, of only two countries, one of which is ten times as
> populous as the other.  While I think it is important to encourage
> geographic diversity, I don't think anyone would favor a rule that
> required that one member always be from Califonia.  Yet California has the
> same population as Canada.  When the Nomcom member is from Canada (who,
> incidentally, I think is doing a fine job, this isn't about him), this
> rule would in effect give Canadians twenty times the per capita vote of
> Americans.
>
> I would adjust that section to say:
>
> "Selected individuals must be individual members or members of different
> At-Large Structures based the North American region.  To the maximum
> extent feasible, the selected individuals should represent the geographic
> and cultural diversity of the region."
>
>
> Regards,
> John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
> Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
> "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
>


-- 
-- 
Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
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