revised draft of NCUC comments on LSE Report on GNSO reform

[Milton Mueller]

Fantastic work, Robin. A few additional comment where I would like to
add something below:

>>> Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org> 12/21/2006 3:20:47 PM >>>
>Recommendation 2
>"GNSO Constituencies should be required to show how many members
have
>participated in the policy positions they adopt."

We find this recommendation to be unrealistic. The issue is not "how
many" participated but whether the members support the position and
whether the membership has had an opportunity to review and disagree
with a position, and an opportunity to re-elect or rebuff
representatives who do things that do not reflect their views. Domain
names are a small part of the mission of most nonprofits. Members in our
constituency do not have the time or resources to track in detail every
single action taken by ICANN's GNSO. Of necessity, constituency
participants must focus their time on the specific issues that interest
them the most and leave to others the ones that don't.

>Recommendation 5
>"Constituencies should focus on growing balanced representation and

>active participation broadly proportional to wider global
distributions
>for relevant indicators."

We agree and note that according to the LSE report the NCUC has the
best record in this regard, although there is still room for
improvement.

>Recommendation 17 -- I would like to add something to Robin's
statement:

>* 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.

ADD: However, unless these TFs are better managed and pushed to reach
agreement or defined areas of no agreement more rapidly, a larger number
of simultaneous Task Forces will only create more confusion and gaming
of the policy development process.

>Recommendation 18
>"An 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."
>
>* 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.

PROPOSED REPLACEMENT: Who would choose these "stakeholders"? Who will
decide that they are "experts"? How can we we ensure that they are
balanced in terms of their policy perspectives? Unless these questions
are answered, we cannot support this recommendation.