revised draft of NCUC comments on LSE Report on GNSO reform

[Adam Peake]

At 12:20 PM -0800 12/21/06, Robin Gross wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>I've updated and revised Milton's previous draft 
>of these comments on the LSE report. Below is 
>the text of the proposed revised comments.
>
>Please let me know what revisions you'd like in 
>the next day because we this is due on 22 
>December.
>
>I don't think we necessarily have to comment on 
>every LSE recommendation - many are just to 
>vague to be for or against. I'd prefer that we 
>only comment on the recommendations that we have 
>definite opinions about.


Agree.  And I'm in agreement with the drafts 
MIlton's been circulating.  But... 
Recommendation 2 and 5 seem obvious to me. 
Saying "NCUC Supports" for both would be in-line 
with support for increased transparency 
generally.  Recommendation 2 might just mean that 
all constituency lists where constituency policy 
is deliberated should have a public archive. 
However, not a big deal to give no response.

My opinion on 13 has changed recently.  I am 
strongly in favor of term limits.  But I think 4 
years total is too short.  Experience with NomCom 
suggests it takes a year to start coming up to 
speed on the Council. GNSO work is about has hard 
as it gets in ICANN. And for a constituency like 
NCUC it seems a shame to have to drop good people 
after such a short time.  My preferred option 
would be 2 3 year terms, but 3 2 year terms near 
equally good. Apologies to be late with this, 
only just started thinking about it generally. 
Ignore if too late.

Adam



>Thank you!
>Robin
>
>====================
>
>v.0.5
>Comments of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) on the
>GNSO Review: LSE Report and Recommendations
>December 2006
>
>
>ICANN¹s Non-Commercial User Constituency (NCUC) 
>welcomes the London School of Economics (LSE) 
>report on the GNSO and urges the Board to 
>implement many, but not all, of its 
>recommendations.
>
>Recommendation 1
>³A centralized register of all GNSO stakeholders 
>should be established, which is up-to-date and 
>publicly accessible. It should include members 
>of Constituencies and others involved in the 
>GNSO task forces.²
>
>[no opinion developed]
>
>Recommendation 2
>³GNSO Constituencies should be required to show 
>how many members have participated in the policy 
>positions they adopt.²
>
>[no opinion developed]
>
>Recommendation 3
>³There needs to be greater coherence and 
>standardization across constituency operations. 
>For this to work effectively, more ICANN staff 
>support would be needed for constituencies.²
>
>* NCUC does not support recommendation 3. 
>Constituencies should be funded by ICANN so they 
>can provide their own staff support for these 
>roles. It does not have to be an ICANN staff 
>member that fulfills this function and role, 
>which NCUC agrees needs to be filled.
>
>Recommendation 4
>³A GNSO Constituency support officer should be 
>appointed to help Constituencies develop their 
>operations, websites and outreach activity.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 4 as it would 
>enable constituencies, particularly the 
>less-funded constituencies to carry out the work 
>of the organization in a more consistent fashion.
>
>Recommendation 5
>³Constituencies should focus on growing balanced 
>representation and active participation broadly 
>proportional to wider global distributions for 
>relevant indicators.²
>
>[no opinion developed]
>
>
>Recommendation 6
>³The basis for participation in GNSO activities 
>needs to be revised, from Constituency based 
>membership to one deriving from direct ICANN 
>stakeholder participation.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 6 since many 
>people or entities do not fit neatly into any 
>ICANN constituency and it is important the ICANN 
>hear from all viewpoints. Also, because hardly 
>anyone in the public has heard of the GNSO, 
>participation in ICANN via the GNSO will not 
>garner much interest and remain at a low level.
>
>Recommendation 7
>³The GNSO should improve the design and 
>organization of the current website, develop a 
>website strategy for continual improvement and 
>growth over the next three years, and review 
>usage statistics on a regular basis to check 
>that traffic to the website is growing over time 
>and understand more fully what external 
>audiences are interested in.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 7. Since the 
>website is the main tool through which GNSO 
>policy discussions are made available to the 
>world, it is extremely important the information 
>be accessible and easy to find. Most agree that 
>ICANN should continue to upgrade its website, 
>including the GNSO website.
>
>Recommendation 8
>³Document management within the GNSO needs to be 
>improved and the presentation of policy 
>development work made much more accessible.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 8. Closely tied 
>to recommendation 7, an online document 
>management system to better provide the public 
>with GNSO policymaking discussions and reports 
>would be an important improvement.
>
>Recommendation 9
>³The GNSO should develop and publish annually a 
>Policy Development Plan for the next two years, 
>to act both as a strategy document for current 
>and upcoming policy work, and as a 
>communications and marketing tool for general 
>consumption outside of the ICANN community. It 
>should dovetail with ICANN¹s budget and strategy 
>documents.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 9. Developing 
>policy development plans at the GNSO will 
>encourage long-term thinking and prioritization 
>of issues.
>
>Recommendation 10
>³The GNSO and ICANN should work pro actively to 
>provide information-based incentives for 
>stakeholder organizations to monitor and 
>participate in GNSO issues.²
>
>[no opinion developed]
>
>Recommendation 11
>³The position of the GNSO Council Chair needs to 
>become much more visible within ICANN and to 
>carry more institutional weight.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 11. In general 
>the GNSO needs to be more widely recognized as 
>the appropriate forum for public policymaking at 
>ICANN.
>
>Recommendation 12
>³The policy on GNSO Councilors declaring 
>interests should be strengthened. Provision for 
>a vote of Œno confidence¹ leading to resignation 
>should be introduced for noncompliance.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 12. Transparency 
>and accountability regarding the various 
>interests of GNSO Councilors is always an 
>appropriate objective for good public policy 
>making.
>
>Recommendation 13
>³Fixed term limits should be introduced for GNSO 
>Councilors either of two two-year terms (as 
>applied in some Constituencies already) or 
>perhaps of a single three-year term.²
>
>* NCUC strongly supports recommendation 13. In 
>order for there to be an even playing field 
>across all constituencies, they should all have 
>term limits. Otherwise the constituencies who do 
>have limits have an advantage over those that do 
>not in directing GNSO policy work over time. 
>Being a GNSO councilor should not be a ³career², 
>but rather a public service done only for a few 
>years. The GNSO election structures should 
>discourage career GNSO councilors and encourage 
>the widest range of participation and a 
>diversity of viewpoints. NCUC supports a 
>standard two or three term limit of two-year 
>terms for each constituency.
>
>Recommendation 14
>³The GNSO Council and related policy staff 
>should work more closely together to grow the 
>use of project-management methodologies in 
>policy development work, particularly focusing 
>on how targeted issue analysis can drive data 
>collection from stakeholders (rather than vice 
>versa) .²
>
>* NCUC does not support recommendation 14. The 
>GNSO policy decisions and recommendations should 
>be made by the various constituencies, not by 
>ICANN policy staff as the text supporting this 
>recommendation suggested. ICANN policy staff 
>officers best serve in the role of facilitators 
>of the discussion, not arbiters of competing 
>policy issues.
>
>Recommendation 15
>³The GNSO Council should rely on face-to-face 
>meetings supplemented by online collaborative 
>methods of working. The Chair should seek to 
>reduce the use of whole-Council 
>teleconferencing.²
>
>* NCUC does not support recommendation 15. Even 
>if ICANN were able to pay for the travel costs 
>of the meeting participants, it is unlikely NCUC 
>members (or members of other constituencies) can 
>donate a number of days of their time to attend 
>more face-to-face meetings. Most NCUC members 
>(as with other constituencies) have full-time 
>jobs that do not allow for frequent face-to-face 
>meetings at different corners of the globe for 
>ICANN policy work. NCUC supports getting as much 
>work done via telephone and email as possible, 
>and to rely upon holding face-to-face meetings, 
>only when absolutely necessary.
>
>Recommendation 16
>³The GNSO Councilors should have access to a 
>fund for reasonable travel and accommodation 
>expenses to attend designated Council meetings, 
>instead of having to meet such costs from their 
>own resources as at present.²
>
>* NCUC strongly supports recommendation 16. The 
>lack of funding available to constituencies is 
>one of the biggest impediments to participation 
>at ICANN meetings. ICANN should be serious about 
>its attempt to engage in policymaking by 
>providing for the travel of the councilors doing 
>the work of the organization. ICANN should 
>automatically fund the reasonable travel costs 
>of all GNSO council members and an executive 
>member of each constituency to ICANN Board 
>members. ICANN should also provide for the 
>reasonable travel costs of task force members 
>who are carrying out the work of the 
>organization.
>
>Recommendation 17
>³The GNSO Council should make more uses of Task 
>Forces. Task Force participants should be more 
>diverse and should be drawn from a wider range 
>of people in the Internet community, and 
>national and international policy-making 
>communities.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 17. Better use of 
>task forces would help the GNSO to carryout its 
>work much for effectively and through a wider 
>range of stakeholders.
>
>Recommendation 18
>³An ICANN Associate stakeholder category of 
>participation should be created, so as to create 
>a pool of readily available external expertise, 
>which can be drawn upon to populate Task Forces 
>where relevant.²
>
>* NCUC supports recommendation 18. A new means 
>of obtaining more diversity of viewpoints and a 
>broader range of expertise would be a useful 
>input into GNSO policy making discussions.
>
>Recommendation 19
>³The current GNSO Constituency structure should 
>be radically simplified so as to be more capable 
>of responding to rapid changes in the Internet. 
>The Constituency structure should be clear, 
>comprehensive (covering all potential 
>stakeholders) and flexible, allowing the GNSO to 
>respond easily to rapid changes in the makeup of 
>Internet stakeholders. We suggest a set of three 
>larger Constituencies to represent respectively 
>Registration interests, Business and Civil 
>Society.²
>
>* NCUC strongly supports recommendation 19. The 
>LSE report suggests that GNSO be restructured 
>into three basic groupings: the registration 
>supply industry, business interests, and civil 
>society. NCUC agrees that this is a cleaner and 
>more workable constituency structure than now 
>exists. There are important details to be worked 
>out, however.
>
>The existing structure gives business, 
>particularly entertainment companies or other 
>intellectual property interests, too much power 
>in GNSO policy making and an unfair advantage. 
>Non-commercial interests should be given equal 
>weight to commercial interests in GNSO policy 
>making as a matter of principle.
>
>Recommendation 20
>³A reorganization of the GNSO Constituencies 
>would also allow the Council to be made somewhat 
>smaller (we suggest 16 members) and hence easier 
>to manage.²
>
>* NCUC strongly disagrees with recommendation 
>20. While the Council should be made smaller, 
>the details for implementing that vague goal are 
>unsupportable.
>
>We disagree with the report's proposal that 
>registration suppliers and business users be 
>given 5 votes on the policy making Council, 
>while civil society be given only 3. This kind 
>of discrimination against a particular sector of 
>societal interests is unjustified. Nothing in 
>the factual findings of the report supports this 
>discrimination. The report
>does not even mount an argument for it. We 
>suggest that the supply industry be given 5 
>members, and business and civil society each 
>given 4, with the remaining 3 appointed by the 
>NomCom.
>
>We note that the existence of three "at large" 
>GNSO Council members appointed by the Nominating 
>Committee does not compensate for this 
>inequality. The NomCom-appointed Council members 
>can come from any constituency; the NomCom 
>contains diverse interests and is not guaranteed 
>to appoint members sympathetic to civil society.
>
>How the civil society representatives on the 
>Council are selected is very important condition 
>upon our support. We note that the concept of a 
>"civil society" category leaves unresolved 
>issues about the relationship between NCUC and 
>ALAC. While we strongly favor a more unified 
>structure for civil society participation in 
>ICANN, NCUC representatives are elected under a 
>formal and legitimate membership structure, 
>whereas the process of selecting ALAC Board 
>members is complicated and non-transparent. As 
>long as ALAC and GNSO are structurally separate, 
>and ALAC's structures are incomplete, civil 
>society representation within the GNSO will have 
>to be mediated by NCUC.
>
>Recommendation 21
>³The definition of achieving consensus should be 
>raised to 75 per cent. Weighted voting should be 
>abolished. Both measures could be used to create 
>more incentives for different constituencies to 
>engage constructively with each other, rather 
>than simply reiterating a Œbloc¹ position in 
>hopes of picking up enough uncommitted votes so 
>as to win.²
>
>* NCUC does not support recommendation 21. The 
>LSE Report proposes to raise the threshold for a 
>"consensus policy" to 75% of the vote. We do not 
>support this recommendation and would prefer to 
>retain a 2/3 super majority as the threshold for 
>"consensus." Under the LSE proposal, supplier 
>interests and business interests could, if only 
>4 of their representatives agreed, prevent a 75% 
>majority from forming and thus block any policy. 
>The public interest advocates in civil society, 
>even if they were completely unified, could not 
>exercise such a veto. This is not a correct 
>balance of policy influence. Moreover the very 
>high 75% requirement would basically freeze the 
>status quo in place. If the status quo were a 
>very good state of affairs, this might be an 
>acceptable approach. The LSE¹s recommendation 
>would give commercial interests an automatic 
>veto over the public-interest without any 
>explanation or justification.
>
>If representation on the council is to be 
>weighted, it is reasonable that the registration 
>industry, whose survival depends entirely on 
>ICANN contracts and policies, have some kind of 
>special status in the outcome of policies. They 
>need to be protected against various forms of 
>crippling regulation or expropriation at the 
>hands of GNSO Council
>legislators who do not have to directly bear the 
>costs of their policies. But there is no 
>legitimate reason why commercial interests 
>should be given the same veto power while 
>non-commercial ordinary Internet users denied 
>it. We also think that registrars and registries 
>often have conflicting interests and therefore 
>it is better for there to be wider 
>representation for them in order to accommodate 
>this structural difference.
>
>Recommendation 22
>³The way in which the GNSO Council votes to 
>elect two directors to the ICANN Board should be 
>changed to use the Supplementary Vote system.²
>
>[no opinion developed]
>
>Recommendation 23
>³The amount of detailed prescriptive provision 
>in the ICANN Bylaws relating to the operations 
>of the GNSO should be reduced. ICANN Bylaws 
>should outline broad principles and objectives 
>for the GNSO but the detailed operational 
>provision (including the section on the PDP) 
>should be transferred to the GNSO Rules of 
>Procedure. This would allow the GNSO to agree 
>amendments and to introduce new innovations in 
>its working methods and time lines in a more 
>realistic and flexible way, while operating 
>within ICANN¹s guiding principles.²
>
>*NCUC supports recommendation 23. The current 
>structure in the ICANN Bylaws is far too 
>micro-managing of the GNSO work to be useful. 
>Much of the detailed prescriptive provisions in 
>the ICANN Bylaws for GNSO work should be 
>removed. The GNSO is the best position to manage 
>its internal operations and objectives.
>
>
>Recommendation 24
>³Both ICANN and the GNSO Council should 
>periodically (say once every five years) compile 
>or commission a formal quantitative and 
>qualitative assessment of the influence of the 
>GNSO's work on developing policy for generic 
>names. This should include an analysis of how 
>the GNSO's influence with national governments, 
>international bodies and the commercial sector 
>might be extended.²
>
>[no opinion developed]