[ncdnhc-discuss] NAIS Report Released

[Rob Courtney]

Members of the Non-Commercial Constituency:

The NGO and Academic ICANN Study (NAIS) has released its report on 
reforming ICANN to make it more responsive to the public interest, 
entitled, "ICANN, Legitimacy, and the Public Voice: How to Make 
Global Participation and Representation Work." The report is 
available in PDF at: http://www.naisproject.org/report/final/.

An Executive Summary of the report is also available, in both PDF and 
HTML forms. Translations of the Executive Summary (Spanish, French, 
and Chinese) are currently in production.

In brief, the NAIS report calls on ICANN to commit itself to 
including the public voice in three major areas:

* ICANN should maintain a broad, open At-Large Membership, accessible 
to any Internet user with an interest in ICANN's activities.

* The At-Large Membership must be provided with strong participatory 
mechanisms, to enable Members to have a persistent and continuing 
role in the dialogue and debate that are part of the ICANN policy 
process.

* The Membership must also be strongly represented at the Board level 
through the direct election of a number of At-Large Directors equal 
to the aggregate number of Directors selected by the Supporting 
Organizations.

The report discusses these principles in detail, and sets out a 
framework by which ICANN can fulfill them completely.

We look forward to the community's responses to this report. Please 
feel free to contact me or any member of the NAIS team with any 
questions or comments.

Rob Courtney

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Rob Courtney
Secretariat
NGO and Academic ICANN Study
http://www.naisproject.org/
rob at naisproject.org