[EURO-Discuss] alac review

William Drake william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
Mon Jun 30 05:00:28 EDT 2008


Hi,

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 4:16 PM, Wolf Ludwig
<wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net> wrote:

> I agree with Vittorio that it would be much easier - especially for those who haven't
> been in Paris - to have some starting points already (otherwise it would habe been
> rather useless to sit together in Paris for almost two hours). We could use the "starting
> points" as a basis for further considerations and suggestions on the list.

Ok then, by popular demand, below are the notes I received on the
initial discussion.  I've left them in their raw state---there are
some general cross-cutting points about overall thrust and balance and
the target audience (believe we settled on the board wg) followed by
issue-specific points grouped under the section headings of the draft
summary report.  Perhaps as a first step people could read the full
draft report and then provide any comments using these headings for
easy identification.  After everything's on the table a few of us
could form a drafting group to massage the inputs into an integrated
text.  I'll volunteer to be part of that group.

> I suggest that afterwards we give about 10-14 days for discussion
> to come up with a consolidated and final EURALO Statement
> around 15 July.

Some time is needed between discussion/inputs and production of a
statement, so unless there's some urgency relating to the board
wg/Westlake production schedule I'd suggest we think in terms of the
week of the 21st for the latter.  If others will be in Meissen for
Wolfgang's Internet governance summer school, we could even finalize
in person.  And of course the resulting text should be cleared through
list before sending it off.  In any event, since this will be Euralo's
first substantive output we should ensure we get the process right and
help set a foundation for future work.

Cheers,

Bill

------------

Express concerns:
Staff – several layers of indirectness
Budget independence
Positive, points we agree with
What should have been looked at
Giving some recommendations
Individual memberships
Participation of users
Voting rights on supporting organizations (gnso) and board…
Surprise about statements the range is not wide – ahistorical…

Who to address:
The Westlake group?
The Board?


Process:
Conflict of interests the very staff who is responsible

You did not examine the role of staff:

The procedure of the selection of the reviewer was not transparent.

Although the review was mandated by the bylaws, the date of reviewing
was unlucky because it reviewed the interim alac.

1.	The way the contract was done.
2.	Allocation in management of the contract
3.	Timing of the report (mandated by bylaws)
4.	Relationship to staff – dependency conflict of interests
5.	Not everyone has been interviewed
6.	Skope: Terms of reference

Assessment of key factors affecting alac s effectiveness:
Staff,
History, individual membership
Constitutional question of role of alac
At-Large structure participation
Democratizing icann
Budget
Focus on the committee itself
The skope is weak in terms analyzing of the relationship of the
committee board and constituent membership at-large

Promote web
Did they not get it by accident or did they not get it because they
were instructed to not get it.

Introduction:
Procedural points:

History of the ALAC starts in 1999. That means you cannot look at the
ALAC without looking at the At-Large.

Purpose of alac
The good part of the review is they mention – accountability of icann
Give representation of the users in icann
Terms of reference…

Structural options:
The range of options considered where at some place excentric, and
other options promoting the bottom up involvement of users (which make
more sense were not mentioned.)
They should be transparent about the options chosen from the data they
collected. As it is clear that other options have been mentioned.


Geography:
Positive, that they looked at the population and to find a way of good
user´s representation.
It would be adv
Problem of pure numeric representation should be mentioned.
Different cultures, languages, political structures.
A very non-scientific approach. Methodologically unsophisticated.
Resolution premature, and it would be best to take that issue up in
icanns larger regional represantation.
No reference had been made to former studies on geographic regional
representation (sub-organisations).

Future developments of growing number of ALSes were not taken into account.


ALAC influence:
Ok

Board liaison:
Voting: We find that the logic is amusing/ flawed. If having a vote
hampers consensus building on the board than all of the stakeholders
should…
All board members should be treated equally
A vote on the board
While we understand the concern that giving a vote to a committee that
might change its status of the ALAC this will not change the procedure
of consensus building.
The gac was offered voting rights, they did not want.
(Later: maybe a clear statement: We would like to have it.)

The quote: "`to act in what [directors] reasonably believe ar the best
interests of ICANN and not as….`"

Secondly we find the conclusion that giving alac a vote would dilute
rather than increase its influence because of the duty to serve the
interest of Icann
Is based on a false dichotomy.
Alac members are fully invested in ICANN's mission and tasks. There is
no contradiction between serving ICANN's interests and representing At
Large interests.
We support the suggestion to allocate staff support on a regional
basis. The effectiveness of staff support is more depend on quality
than quantity. In addition, we have further observations.
1.	The consultant should review the processes of appointing staff for
ALAC and RALOs to see whether those processes are in line with the
goal to create a supporting structure for ALAC and REALOS.
2.	The consultant should look into the matter of budget allocation and
particularly review the procedure of decision making to allocate the
budget and investigate whether those structures allows ALAC and RALOs
to fulfill their function.

Due to the late delivery of the report, there was no time to consult
with all of our members. For this reason, we reserve the right to
prepare further statements in the next few days.



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