Fwd: Map of the GNSO Policy Development Process

[Milton Mueller]

>>> karen banks <karenb at GN.APC.ORG> 2/18/2007 10:58 AM >>>

>i'm interested in this now when thinking about the nomcom process..
>how one would describe the nature of GSNO policy development to
>potential candidates who aren't necessarily ICANN insiders.. but who
>may bring useful skills, expertise and perspectives to the process..

One must start with a political analysis, not a process analysis. Who
has power over which decisions?

Start with the Board and CEO/staff. They make the basic decisions and
are basically agents of the USG., operating with some slack. The slack
tightens around the time the IANA contract or MoU (JPA) is renegotiated,
and loosens as those dates become farther away. Any major interest (IPR,
VeriSign, registrars) can also threaten to litigate or make noise before
the US Congress, thereby swaying or influencing the Board/staff to some
degree. Since WSIS, GAC has also become more important, its so-called
"principles" or communiques act as guides or constraints. For people on
the Board, GNSO Task Forces are perceived as tiny little peeps in the
cacophony oflobbying surrounding them. ICANN Board is partly
self-perpetuating with NomComm always more or less under the control of
a group of ISOC-linked old timers.

How is the GNSO and its PDP related to the Board?

GNSO Council is supposed to formulate policy on anything having to do
with domain names. Board can ask GNSO for policy on something, or GNSO
can initiate. Whatever the GNSO can decide on becomes "policy advice"
that is fed up to the Board and is supposed to guide its decisions. It
usually does to some degree, but Board always feels free to make its own
modifications and interpretations, and God is always in the details of
staff implementations. Chair of the GNSO engages in constant liaison
with staff and Board and serves a very important gatekeeping role wrt to
what is acted on and how it is acted on.

To understand the GNSO Council, one must look at its constituencies and
members, and do the basic political arithmetic. There are 6
constituencies. Each constituency elects 3 Council members, plus 3
additional members are put on by the Nomcom. Three of the constituencies
-- Business, Trademark and ISPs -- consistently support a restrictive
and regulatory approach to DNS policy in order to protect trademark and
copyright. ISPs are in that category because they are all owned by big
telecom companies. Two constituencies -- registrars and registries --
represent the domain name industry and have double votes on the Council.
Registries, with only about 9 members, are a tightly knit group that
always votes the same; registrars are a diverse, competitive lot and
have trouble reaching consensus. Then there is NCUC, the only
non-business group. To achieve what is rather cynically called
"consensus" the Council must get a 2/3 plus vote. So, do the math:
Total votes: 27. Axis: 9 votes. Registries and registrars: 12 votes.
NCUC: 3 votes. Nomcom appointees: 3 votes

A coalition of NCUC, registrars, registries, and Nomcoms can push
something through.
A coallition of Axis, registries and registrars can too. etc., etc. --
do your own permutations.
On many if not most issues this group will be deadlocked, reaching
sub-consensus levels. This serves the interest of the status quo. If any
proposal for serious policy change, a lack of complete consensus at the
GNSO level leaves the door open for conservative forces on the board to
modify or ignore GNSO initiatives.

To formulate policy, GNSO Council decides to create a "Task Force" (TF)
along the lines suggested by the formal policy development process PDP.
The Task Force mus tbe guided by a "Terms of Reference" (ToR) describing
what it is supposed to do. Agreeing to create a TF and drafting its ToR
is very time consuming and difficult. Basically it's impossible without
the support of the GNSO Chair.

TFs are chaired by some Council member. The chairs are often amateurs
in terms of moderating the people and process. TFs often turn into mush
because they have no clear voting procedures or procedural guidelines
for what is in or out of order, so they can be and are gamed; e.g., huge
delaying tactics, introducing dilatory proposals, endless telephone
discussions. As the Whois process shows, controversial issues can remain
in the TF stage for years.

Recently, ICANN staff members have taken a more active role in managing
TFs. Their basic interest is to show that ICANN can actually accomplish
something. Some staff are more aggressive than others. Years ago it used
to be the case that staff reports reflected shadowy internal ICANN/USG
politics but this is no longer the case they have become much more
professional and autonomous. Probably staff should supplant Council or
TF members as the de facto administrative chairs of the TFs, so that the
trains run on time.

TFs don't really make policy they make reports that are put up for
public comment and then voted on by the GNSO Council. After passing the
Council they go to the Board. See the section on Board politics....

aren't you glad you asked?



Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org