[ncdnhc-discuss] Board retreats and fully transparent process for ICANN

[Hendrik Rood]

At 23:13 27-5-02 -0400, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:

>         Like other U.S. federal multimember agencies, the U.S. Federal
>Communications Commission is forbidden closed meetings except in very
>limited circumstances: where the relevant portion of the meeting would
>disclose confidential trade secrets, involve accusing a person of a crime,
>disclose personal information constituting a clearly unwarranted invasion
>of personal privacy, etc.  The agency can't evade that rule by renaming
>the meeting a "retreat" and postphoning any formal votes until later.
>
>         The fact that the body is allowed *some* closed meetings shouldn't
>obscure the fact that the agency is not allowed the sort of closed meeting
>that ICANN is engaging in and that Jamie is criticizing.
>
>Jon
>
>
>Jonathan Weinberg
>Professor of Law, Wayne State University
>weinberg at msen.com

Jon,

Do you really mean that the 5-person Commission never helds closed meetings 
with FCC-staff? That is then a major difference with all European National 
Regulatory Agencies. I am not familiar with any more or less equivalent 
European Quango (Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation) regulating 
telecommunications (Oftel, RegTP, OPTA, Telestryrelsen, ART etc.) that is 
as open in its commission-meetings as you claim.

The typical procedures here in Europe when discussing telephone numbering 
policies and plans are governments/regulators (this differs per country) 
running "closed" meetings with industry and consumer representations on new 
proposals. Finished proposals are than published in obliged public 
consultation procedures according to administrative law. After consultation 
decisions are made (again not in a public meeting) the decision is 
published. Interested stakeholders who do not agree with the decision can 
fight the decision in the court system.

The average experience is that judges hardly decide on the content of a 
counterclaim but only marginally on the procedure followed. They look if 
the proper procedure is followed and all parties have been heard 
sufficiently by the decision making body. They perform this act sometimes 
by requesting notes and documents, but mainly by scrutinizing the published 
documents and looking at proper timespans between the different procedural 
steps.

 From an European perspective ICANN's public forums, its scribe notes and 
webcasts (and also the procedures of many ccTLD's over here) are already 
far more open than any governmental procedure according to administrative laws.

The essential point here is that what is considered as sufficient 
"openness" for public bodies and options for disputing decisions is a very 
varied cultural phenomenon between democratic countries.
What will be agreed as sufficient for ICANN2 when it evolves into one or 
another kind of international regime is quite open. I would not bet on the 
amount of openness of the current ICANN. More recent treaty organisations 
like the WTO may prove as an example of directions the evolution of 
international regimes might take.

Kind Regards,

Hendrik Rood
--

ir. Hendrik Rood
Senior Consultant
Stratix Consulting Group BV
tel: +31 20 44 66 555
fax: +31 20 44 66 560
e-mail: Hendrik.Rood at stratix.nl