[lac-discuss-en] geographical diversity

[Carlton Samuels]

Carlos:
I'm glad that you made a point of this because I recently had to intervene
in a employment situation.  I proposed a qualified Jamaican candidate for an
open policy development position in ICANN. Nick assisted me in sending the
cv and application to the right person. [ Yes, that might be a small gesture
but a very helpful thing!]  From what follows, it appears that my judgment
of her qualifications was confirmed.

When the recruiter made contact, she was disqualified because she did not
have an American work visa, did not live in a country that ICANN had offices
nor had a work visa to work from ICANN's third country offices.  My
information is ICANN says it does not intervene in work visa issues, "except
under extreme circumstances".

Here is a case where the words of the principles espoused by ICANN do not
reflect reality. Because this rule simply disqualifies highly qualified
candidates who are neither European or American...or, have works visas for
the US or the EU.  The resulting 'bantustanization" of ICANN professional
staff is the natural resutl of this. I wrote to Denise Michel, the ICANN VP
that covers the polic area on the matter.  I have not had the beneift of a
reply as yet.

In matters of international trade - and trade in services - this is a very
good example of a "non-tariff barrier". But ICANN needs to udnerstand that
we must walk the walk, not just talk the talk!

Carlton

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 9:24 AM, carlos aguirre <carlosaguirre62 at hotmail.com
> wrote:

>
> Dear All: This topic was touched in Cairo at Open Forum and I believe is
> neccesary (like said Norbert Klein) more discussion about it.
>
> http://public.icann.org/en/node/2007
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> ICANN's geographical diversity
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> Submitted by YoungEum on Thu, 2008-11-06 11:26.
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> This is the text of my comment during the Cairo public forum.
> ICANN's core value #4 focuses on geographic and cultural diversity at all
> levels of policy development and decision-making. This value has been
> repeatedly emphasized in the DoC's midterm review of the JPA as well. I
> would first like to acknowledge the efforts of ICANN to adhere to this value
> by adopting the geographical diversity principle to its board and various
> committees as well as the decision to hold the meetings in a rotating
> fashion in the five geographical regions. At the same time, however, I would
> like to point out some areas which I believe requires continued effort in
> this area, specifically, in the distribution of ICANN staff. According to
> the figures in the ICANN site, out of the 73 staff members, there are NO
> members from Latin America, 4 from Africa , 13 from Europe, and 45, or 62%
> of staff members, are from the North American region, of which 41 are from
> the United States.
> In the case of the AP region, 6 staff members are from Australia, 1 from
> the Middle East, and 4 are from the rest of Asia. And although I think that
> the ccNSO chair, Chris Disspain, the President of ICANN, Paul Twoomey, and a
> significant member of the Board, Bruce Tonkin, all from Australia, and ICANN
> board chair, Peter DT, from New Zealand are doing a fabulous job and I have
> only the highest admiration for them, and personally have the warmest
> feelings especially for Peter and Chris, I would hesitate to fully agree
> that the truly Asian perspective, which constitutes 40% of all Internet
> Users in the world, is represented by their presence on those important
> positions. I would like to point out that in terms of geographical
> diversity, ICANN still has some way to go in terms of reflecting the truly
> Asian perspective and would like to publicly make an appeal to ICANN to
> consider this in the future, for example, in.....
>
> Carlos Dionisio Aguirreabogado - Sarmiento 71 - 4to. 18 Cordoba - Argentina
> -*54-351-424-2123 / 423-5423www.derechoytecnologia.com.arhttp://
> ar.ageiadensi.org
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