Draft Letter to ICANN Board & CEO

[Willie Currie]

Dear Mary

Great letter! Just two quick points - I'm not sure about paragraph 3. I
thought the idea expressed in today's meeting was precisely to make a
request to the Board to reconsider its decision. So I would  suggest
striking out paragrph 3 and replacing it with a formal request to the
board to reconsider its decision.  That would also change the tenor of
the letter from  a plea to correct misperceptions to a  formal request
to reconsider a decision.

With regard to section 2 on specific issues with the NCSG Charter
adopted by the Board, isn't there a body of US adminstrative law we can
draw on to attack the decision on the grounds of administrative
injustice, as it appears that the process adopted by ICANN in its
decision-making on the charters has been based on:

- the misperceptions circulated about the NCUC by the ALAC chair and
others (p9)
- the timing of the late release of the SIC/Staff Charter and the
process surrounding its tabling to the Board (p7)
- the failure of the Board to discuss the NCUC's proposed Charter,
implying the failure of the NCUC's views to be heard by an
administrative body (is there evidence of this?) (p10)
- the filtering of views in the 'Summary & Analysis' document and the
short time it was provided to the Board before the July 30 Meeting
(today's NCUC meeting)

In addition, the disparity in treatment between the Board's treatment of
the NCSG and CSG charters raises issues of administrative fairness
regarding constituencies and the issue of the ICANN Board being guilty
of discrimination and prejudice (p10).

I don't know how administrative justice works in the USA but these are
the kinds of issues in other jurisdictions which would be used to
overturn a decision of an administrative body on technical grounds of
administrative fairness, whether through formal processes of judicial
review or alternative dispute mechanisms, which is often easier to do
than challenging issues on the merits or content of decisions.

Willie

Willie Currie
Communications and Information Policy Programme Manager
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
www.apc.org

Mary Wong wrote:
> Dear NCUC'ers,
>
> Attached is the draft letter that was discussed during the
> constituency call held earlier today. For those who were not able to
> be on the call, the purpose of the letter is to draw the Board's and
> Mr Rod Beckstrom's attention to the injustice of the process which led
> to the arbitrary imposition of the SIC/Staff-drafted transitional NCSG
> Charter (including the selection by the Board of 3 NCSG Councilors in
> the new User House). The NCUC Exco has also discussed the possibility
> of sending this document as an "open letter" to the GNSO community.
> Although long, it was drafted specifically in the form of a
> narrative-cum-summary of the process, and can therefore also serve as
> a reminder/introduction to the whole issue.
>
> For those on the Exco who have seen a preliminary version of this
> draft, please review it carefully nonetheless as certain issues have
> been re-framed and additions made.
>
> Please send comments either directly to me or this list. As agreed on
> the constituency call, we should send this sooner rather than later,
> so a prompt response is very much appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
> Mary
>
>
> *Mary W S Wong*
> Professor of Law
> Franklin Pierce Law Center
> Two White Street
> Concord, NH 03301
> USA
> Email: mwong at piercelaw.edu <mailto:mwong at piercelaw.edu>
> Phone: 1-603-513-5143
> Webpage: http://www.piercelaw.edu/marywong/index.php
> Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network
> (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584

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