Draft of our letter to the Board

[Milton L Mueller]

Dear members:
Following up on our online Constituency meeting last week, Mary, Robin and other members of the EC and Council have spent a lot of time over the past few days working on our letter to the Board. We submit it now to you for review and consensual support. It is attached. 

We are making three simple, very reasonable requests to the Board:
1. To meet with NCUC members at the Seoul meeting (the whole Board, not just the SIC)

2. To commit to a review of the SIC-imposed charter by July 30, 2010 in a way that allows a fair comparison and debate between the SIC approach and the NCUC approach and which allows modification of either to make a final NCSG charter acceptable to our community

3. To not recognize any new constituencies in NCSG until the charter issue is resolved and we know what a constituency really is in the NCSG.

These requests, if met, would mitigate a lot of the damage ICANN's staff and Board have done. I see no reason why they would refuse to meet with us. They have already agreed to review the SIC charter after a year, this request merely clarifies that the NCUC model of NCSG organization, which the vast majority of civil society supports, is still a live option and explicitly confirms staff's and Board's willingness to find modifications and compromises that will make it more acceptable. Again I have difficulty understanding how a reasonable, well-motivated ICANN Board could refuse to do that. Finally, as a simple matter of logic we are telling the Board that it is disruptive and troublesome to recognize new constituencies before we have finalized the NCSG charter, which defines the role of constituencies. 

That fact that our requests are reasonable, of course, is no guarantee that they will be granted. But if they are not, it is a sure tip off that the ICANN Board does not want civil society participation in the GNSO and we will have to consider whether it makes sense to participate in ICANN at all. 

We want to make a strong and unified statement so if you have any objections let us know quickly. We need to get this before the Board soon. Please avoid proposing minor wordsmithing changes; this is pretty much a yes or no proposition at this point. 

--MM
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