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<title>Follow-Up to NCSG Charter-Structure Questions</title>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Hello, all<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>You will remember that I sent questions to
the staff questioning the practicality of certain aspects of their favored
model for a NCSG. The good news is that they have taken the inquiry seriously
and responded. The bad news is that, as I feared, the only way to make their
favored model work requires enormous amounts of organizational overhead –
an additional bureaucratic overlay that creates not only complexity but the
possibility of top-down manipulation of constituency election results. Interestingly,
the more workable approaches start to look a lot like the integrated election
process we already proposed. Read for yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> <st1:PersonName
w:st="on">Robert Hoggarth</st1:PersonName> [mailto:robert.hoggarth@icann.org] <br>
</span></font><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'><br>
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Milton</st1:place></st1:City>:<br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>Thank you for your recent
email (below) in which you posed a couple of questions for the Staff concerning
the new Stakeholder Group model. The questions are challenging and we
have done our best to provide what we think are reasonable recommendations as
to how they might be addressed. <br>
</span></font><br>
<b><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond;font-weight:bold'>Q1:
How does a constituency-based model produced balanced geographic representation
in Council seats? <br>
</span></font></b><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>We envision geographic
diversity as a representational responsibility of each Stakeholder Group (SG)
in fulfilling its role of allocating GNSO Council seats to member
Constituencies. We are currently working with the General Counsel to
draft Bylaw amendments consistent with that approach.<br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>Using your example, if
the SG has six seats and three Constituencies, it may choose to allocate seats
evenly although it would not be required to do so. In the simplest case,
if there are two seats assigned to each Constituency, the SG would alert its
members that it needs to have all five geographic regions represented with no
more than two Councilors coming from the same one. In order to accomplish
that goal, the SG might ask certain Constituencies to produce its candidates
from a limited set of geographic regions. <br>
Another option might be to solicit a larger candidate pool, e.g. three from
each Constituency or nine total (voted from within), and choose those six that
best satisfy the SG’s geographic diversity needs. In a situation
where the number of Council seats to be allocated is not evenly divisible, the
SG might decide to designate certain seats to specific geographic regions and
candidates from various Constituencies could campaign for those available
slots. <font color=navy><span style='color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>MM commentary:
note the last line: “designating certain seats to specific geographic
regions” and allowing “candidates from various Constituencies [to]
campaign for those available slots” sounds suspiciously close to an
integrated, Stakeholder Group-wide election, which is what we proposed! In
other words, Council candidates would have to appeal for votes from across the
entire SG, not just inside their constituency<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3 face=Garamond><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Garamond'>We believe that the SG, working
collaboratively with its member Constituencies, can continue to ensure that its
GNSO Councilors reflect a profile consistent with the organization’s
geographic diversity goals. <br>
</span></font><br>
<b><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond;font-weight:bold'>Q2:
How does a constituency-based model apportion Council seats among
Constituencies when they are of different size?<br>
</span></font></b><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>While the decisions may
be challenging, we think that one principal role of the SG’s leadership
team[ 1] <see footnote below> is to establish the very criteria (and
methodology) that would allow such apportionment determinations to be made.
A SG could utilize factors other than size, for example, geographic
diversity and possibly others. To take a concrete example, if there were
six seats and four constituencies, the SG could end up with a 2-2-1-1 or
3-1-1-1 configuration utilizing whatever decision-making criteria it adopted
(and had approved, via its Charter, by the Board). You raise the
possibility of gaming the system and, of course, such behavior is theoretically
possible in any proposed model including your own. In that circumstance,
the SG leadership should reexamine its methodology and adjust, as necessary, to
minimize any undesirable outcomes. Once the seats are allocated, if a new
constituency is subsequently admitted to the SG by the Board, we recommend
that, at its next annual cycle, the SG reallocate seats taking into
consideration five members vs. four. The most likely Council member
configuration, given the limited combinations, would be 2-1-1-1. We do
make the tacit assumption that any Constituency approved by the Board would
have satisfied ICANN’s fundamental stakeholder representational requirements
and, thus, would be entitled to at least one seat on the Council. <br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>In terms of oversight,
we believe that the Board’s role will be not only to ensure that each of
the SG Charters is structured in a fair, open, and transparent manner; but, it
will also likely monitor SG activities, especially in the period immediately
after initial implementation. <br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>We would be happy to
continue discussing this matter with you and, of course, we would welcome
another set of questions if there are still unresolved issues in your mind.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Denise Michel<br>
<br>
[1] <#_ftnref> <i><span style='font-style:italic'>We would envision an
Execeutive Committee comprised of one delegate from each recognized
Constituency. <br>
</span></i></span></font><br>
<font color=navy><span style='color:navy'>MM comment: This proposal creates a
potential nightmare. It requires a group of delegates from each constituency to
fight among themselves, with no pre-set criteria, to decide who gets how many
Council seats. Unacceptable, and unnecessary. In our proposal, size differences
among constituencies are automatically reflected in voting totals for Council
seats. There is no need for top-down, negotiated allocations. Those
negotiations create all the rigidities that the Board Governance Committee was
trying to get rid of, and present all kinds of opportunities for abuse. Even when
they are not abused, they will consume enormous amounts of time. It is apparent
that ICANN’s professional staff – which gets paid to do this work –
still does not appreciate the way in which imposing additional layers of bureaucracy
and a constant need to contend and negotiation for power inside a SG saps the energy
of noncommercial groups and prevents them from doing the real work of policy development.
I ask for your support to tell the staff that this is not an acceptable option.
</span></font><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'><br>
<br>
</span></font><b><u><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></u></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><u><font size=3
face=Garamond><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Garamond;font-weight:
bold'>MM’s Original Email of 6 February, 2009:<br>
</span></font></u></b><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>Robert, Denise and Ken<br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>Thanks a lot for your
valuable feedback on our draft Charter (v4.0). It is clear that we are making
progress, although there is a long way to go. <br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>In respect to some of
your questions or requests for explanation, let me turn the tables on you a
bit. The presumption in many of these exchanges is that there's something
complicated or "different" about what we are proposing, and that the
"constituency-based SG model" is straightforward and poses no
problems. In many ways, however, an integrated SG structure is far simpler, and
we have no idea how a constituency model would work even if we thought it
desirable to implement it.<br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>Let me give you two
examples. I will pose them in the form of questions because it genuinely would
like to have answers from you or any other defender of the constituency-based
SG model.<br>
</span></font><br>
<b><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond;font-weight:bold'>Q1:
How does a constituency-based model produced balanced geographic representation
in Council seats? <br>
</span></font></b><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'><br>
Think about this. Let's say there are 3 independent constituencies in a SG, and
each of them elects 2 Council seats without reference to the other. So
Constituency A elects (in accord with its own geog. representation rules) a
person from North American and a person from Latin America; Constituency B
elects a person from North America and a person from Latin America; and
Constituency C elects a person from North America and another from <st1:place
w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place>. End result: each constituency has, on its
own, produced as much geographic diversity as it possibly could, and yet the
end result could be that only two world regions are represented on the Council.
<br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>I would be very
interested to see how you propose to avoid this problem while staying in the
constituency model.<br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>An integrated SG model,
by contrast, can impose proportions on the six seats as a whole, thereby
ensuring that most if not all regions are represented. <br>
</span></font><br>
<b><font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond;font-weight:bold'>Q2:
How does a constituency-based model apportion Council seats among
Constituencies when they are of different size?<br>
</span></font></b><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>Let's suppose there is
an "old constituency" that has 50 members, and a "new" constituency
that starts and gets recognized by the Board, and has only 10 initial members
(or even less). How many Council seats does each constituency get? Do they
inherently get the same number of seats simply by virtue of the fact that they
are constituencies? Or does their representation on the Council reflect their
relative size? If the latter, who decides what allocation principle is used,
when there is no pre-established SG decision-making method? And once Council
seats depend on membership size, what is to stop one constituency from
extending membership in an overly easy way, regardless of appropriate criteria,
to inflate its relative size? Will the Board monitor this? <br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>These questions are not
impossible to answer, but they obviously impose a very complex layer of
organization, monitoring and procedure that an integrated SG model does not
have to worry about. <br>
Frankly, Bob and Denise, I could produce about a dozen more questions like
this. But let's see how you do with these two first. <br>
</span></font><br>
<font face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond'>My point is to put this
discussion of SG models on a more solid footing with an equal burden of proof.
If you can convince us that a constituency-based model handles such basic and
obvious issues as well as an integrated model,we'd be more inclined to change
our view. <br>
--MM</span></font><font color=navy><span style='color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Garamond><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Garamond'>[1]</span></font> <#_ftnref> <i><font
face=Garamond><span style='font-family:Garamond;font-style:italic'>We would
envision an Execeutive Committee comprised of one delegate from each recognized
Constituency. </span></font></i><o:p></o:p></p>
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