ICANN SOI to fill sham noncommercial council seats

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

It's highly unfortunate and disappointing.

Nonetheless, should we encourage NCUC community members to step up for
this, particularly members who come from countries in the developing
world and/or from countries which do not have free and fair elections,
and thus whose governments (and by extension GAC representatives)
arguably do not represent citizens' interests?

The alternative it seems is that it would be filled with people
currently unknown to the NCUC community.

They want diversity, we show them we have it?

Best,
Rebecca

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Robin Gross<robin at ipjustice.org> wrote:
> Here is ICANN's announcement calling for Statements of Interest from those
> interested in volunteering to be appointed by the board to represent
> noncommercial users:
>    http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05aug09-en.htm
>
> "... Of the four new Stakeholder Group Charters approved by the Board last
> week, this temporary seat selection by the Board is unique to the NCSG. It
> reflects a fundamental view that the current non-commercial community
> participation in the GNSO is not yet sufficiently diverse or robust to
> select all six of the NCSG's allocated Council seats (as was originally
> intended by the Board's GNSO Improvements initiative)...."
>
> ICANN claims we are not "sufficiently diverse or robust enough to select all
> six" GNSO Council seats.  Yet NCUC represents 137 noncommercial
> organizations and individuals from 48 countries.  Our membership has
> increased by 205% since the parity principle was established.  There never
> was any bar for us to meet - that rhetoric was invented by the commercial
> constituencies and selectively adopted by ICANN staff to justify why 137
> noncommercial organizations and individuals are not entitled to elect their
> own representation.
> Too bad noncommercial users will not be given electoral parity with
> commercial users as the BGC originally promised.  Another empty promise,
> another rigged process.  ICANN is more aggressive than ever in squeezing out
> noncommercial users in policy development.  So sad.
> Robin
>
> IP JUSTICE
> Robin Gross, Executive Director
> 1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
> p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
> w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org
>
>
>



-- 
Rebecca MacKinnon
Open Society Fellow | Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org
Assistant Professor, Journalism & Media Studies Centre, University of Hong Kong

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