FW: Follow-Up to NCSG Charter-Structure Questions

[Brenden Kuerbis]

Hi, Robin

I would like to join the call if possible. My preference would be for
meeting on Friday, as I'll be traveling to MC on Saturday.  But either way I
can setup an Elluminate session, so those who can't be there can listen to
the recording.


Best,

Brenden Kuerbis
Internet Governance Project
http://internetgovernance.org


On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org> wrote:

> Thanks, Milton.  This sounds like a good approach and should address some
> of those concerns from staff.
>
> How about a call on either this Fri., or Sat. to try to hammer this out
> further?
>
> I'm less optimistic that it will pacify those who are fixated on
> controlling counsel seats, but is an inclusive approach that will empower
> minority voices within the constituency.
>
> Thanks,
> Robin
>
>
>
> On Feb 23, 2009, at 6:33 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> Robin
> I will try to have a draft that incorporates the reasonable staff comments
> and some new ideas (thresholds for working group formation) that came out of
> our discussions with ALAC/NARALO people by the middle of this week.  If we
> could schedule a call sometime late evening EST this week I could squeeze it
> into my schedule.
>
> Let me explain this new idea. Brenden Kuerbis actually came up with it, and
> it solves many problems related to minority representation under an
> integrated structure. It should appeal to "dissenters" within NCUC such as
> Cheryl Preston.
>
> The idea is that when a certain threshold of the membership or the policy
> committee wants to form a GNSO Working Group on a policy issue dear to them,
> then ALL NCSG Council representatives must vote to support the formation of
> that WG.
>
> Example: A constituency or faction within the NCUC wants to promote policy
> X. The first step is to get the GNSO Council to create a WG on X. Once a WG
> is formed, any supporters of X can join that WG and work on the issue, it
> doesn't matter whether they have a Council seat or not. So we have a vote in
> the SG or the Policy Committee on whether to form the WG and if a certain
> low threshold is met - say, 20% - then ALL of the NCSG Councillors are
> obliged to vote for the formation of that WG, whether they like the idea or
> not.
>
> Of course, forming the WG does not mean that the supporters of X will get
> exactly the policy they want. But NCSG cannot guarantee that in any event --
> all the other factions, constituencies and SGs will be involved in any WG.
> It does, however, guarantee that minorities within the NCSG have a chance to
> get their ideas past the Council and into the WG phase.
>
> Milton Mueller
> Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
> ------------------------------
> Internet Governance Project:
> http://internetgovernance.org
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Robin Gross [mailto:robin at ipjustice.org <robin at ipjustice.org>]
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 22, 2009 7:27 PM
> *To:* Milton L Mueller; NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] FW: Follow-Up to NCSG Charter-Structure
> Questions
>
> Thanks, Milton.
> You are right that we have to continue to remind the ICANN staff and board
> that the constituency model that the staff is proposing encourages
> stake-holder groups to be in a perpetual power struggle within themselves
> (and between constituencies) to hold on to counsel seats.  The way staff is
> trying to organize the GNSO it appears they are trying to disempower the
> GNSO even further by requiring all energies to be consumed in un-ending
> administrative tasks and political battles.   Too bad.  This "GNSO reform"
> was a real opportunity for ICANN to reform some of its more nasty tendencies
> (like staff dominating the board, the GNSO, etc.)
>
> We should revise our draft SG proposal for submission by 1 March (taking
> into account the feedback we've received so more).
>
> Should we schedule a call this week to discuss the submission further?  Any
> suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
> Robin
>
>
>
>  On Feb 21, 2009, at 9:46 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
>  Hello, all
> You will remember that I sent questions to the staff questioning the
> practicality of certain aspects of their favored model for a NCSG. The good
> news is that they have taken the inquiry seriously and responded. The bad
> news is that, as I feared, the only way to make their favored model work
> requires enormous amounts of organizational overhead – an additional
> bureaucratic overlay that creates not only complexity but the possibility of
> top-down manipulation of constituency election results. Interestingly, the
> more workable approaches start to look a lot like the integrated election
> process we already proposed. Read for yourself.
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* Robert Hoggarth [mailto:robert.hoggarth at icann.org<robert.hoggarth at icann.org>
> ]
>
> Milton:
>
> Thank you for your recent email (below) in which you posed a couple of
> questions for the Staff concerning the new Stakeholder Group model.  The
> questions are challenging and we have done our best to provide what we think
> are reasonable recommendations as to how they might be addressed.
>
> *Q1: How does a constituency-based model produced balanced geographic
> representation in Council seats?
> *
> We envision geographic diversity as a representational responsibility of
> each Stakeholder Group (SG) in fulfilling its role of allocating GNSO
> Council seats to member Constituencies.  We are currently working with the
> General Counsel to draft Bylaw amendments consistent with that approach.
>
> Using your example, if the SG has six seats and three Constituencies, it
> may choose to allocate seats evenly although it would not be required to do
> so.  In the simplest case, if there are two seats assigned to each
> Constituency, the SG would alert its members that it needs to have all five
> geographic regions represented with no more than two Councilors coming from
> the same one.  In order to accomplish that goal, the SG might ask certain
> Constituencies to produce its candidates from a limited set of geographic
> regions.
> Another option might be to solicit a larger candidate pool, e.g. three from
> each Constituency or nine total (voted from within), and choose those six
> that best satisfy the SG's geographic diversity needs.  In a situation where
> the number of Council seats to be allocated is not evenly divisible, the SG
> might decide to designate certain seats to specific geographic regions and
> candidates from various Constituencies could campaign for those available
> slots.
> MM commentary: note the last line: "designating certain seats to specific
> geographic regions" and allowing "candidates from various Constituencies
> [to] campaign for those available slots" sounds suspiciously close to an
> integrated, Stakeholder Group-wide election, which is what we proposed! In
> other words, Council candidates would have to appeal for votes from across
> the entire SG, not just inside their constituency
> We believe that the SG, working collaboratively with its member
> Constituencies, can continue to ensure that its GNSO Councilors reflect a
> profile consistent with the organization's geographic diversity goals.
>
> *Q2: How does a constituency-based model apportion Council seats among
> Constituencies when they are of different size?
> *
> While the decisions may be challenging, we think that one principal role of
> the SG's leadership team[ 1] <see footnote below> is to establish the very
> criteria (and methodology) that would allow such apportionment
> determinations to be made.  A SG could utilize factors other than size, for
> example, geographic diversity and possibly others.  To take a concrete
> example, if there were six seats and four constituencies, the SG could end
> up with a 2-2-1-1 or 3-1-1-1 configuration utilizing whatever
> decision-making criteria it adopted (and had approved, via its Charter, by
> the Board).  You raise the possibility of gaming the system and, of course,
> such behavior is theoretically possible in any proposed model including your
> own.  In that circumstance, the SG leadership should reexamine its
> methodology and adjust, as necessary, to minimize any undesirable outcomes.
>  Once the seats are allocated, if a new constituency is subsequently
> admitted to the SG by the Board, we recommend that, at its next annual
> cycle, the SG reallocate seats taking into consideration five members vs.
> four.  The most likely Council member configuration, given the limited
> combinations, would be 2-1-1-1.  We do make the tacit assumption that any
> Constituency approved by the Board would have satisfied ICANN's fundamental
> stakeholder representational requirements and, thus, would be entitled to at
> least one seat on the Council.
>
> In terms of oversight, we believe that the Board's role will be not only to
> ensure that each of the SG Charters is structured in a fair, open, and
> transparent manner; but, it will also likely monitor SG activities,
> especially in the period immediately after initial implementation.
>
> We would be happy to continue discussing this matter with you and, of
> course, we would welcome another set of questions if there are still
> unresolved issues in your mind.
>
> Regards,
> Denise Michel
>
> [1] <#_ftnref> *We would envision an Execeutive Committee comprised of one
> delegate from each recognized Constituency.
> *
> MM comment: This proposal creates a potential nightmare. It requires a
> group of delegates from each constituency to fight among themselves, with no
> pre-set criteria, to decide who gets how many Council seats. Unacceptable,
> and unnecessary. In our proposal, size differences among constituencies are
> automatically reflected in voting totals for Council seats. There is no need
> for top-down, negotiated allocations. Those negotiations create all the
> rigidities that the Board Governance Committee was trying to get rid of, and
> present all kinds of opportunities for abuse. Even when they are not abused,
> they will consume enormous amounts of time. It is apparent that ICANN's
> professional staff – which gets paid to do this work – still does not
> appreciate the way in which imposing additional layers of bureaucracy and a
> constant need to contend and negotiation for power inside a SG saps the
> energy of noncommercial groups and prevents them from doing the real work of
> policy development. I ask for your support to tell the staff that this is
> not an acceptable option.
>
> **
> *MM's Original Email of 6 February, 2009:
> *
> Robert, Denise and Ken
>
> Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback on our draft Charter (v4.0). It is
> clear that we are making progress, although there is a long way to go.
>
> In respect to some of your questions or requests for explanation, let me
> turn the tables on you a bit. The presumption in many of these exchanges is
> that there's something complicated or "different" about what we are
> proposing, and that the "constituency-based SG model" is straightforward and
> poses no problems. In many ways, however, an integrated SG structure is far
> simpler, and we have no idea how a constituency model would work even if we
> thought it desirable to implement it.
>
> Let me give you two examples. I will pose them in the form of questions
> because it genuinely would like to have answers from you or any other
> defender of the constituency-based SG model.
>
> *Q1: How does a constituency-based model produced balanced geographic
> representation in Council seats?
> *
> Think about this. Let's say there are 3 independent constituencies in a SG,
> and each of them elects 2 Council seats without reference to the other. So
> Constituency A elects (in accord with its own geog. representation rules) a
> person from North American and a person from Latin America; Constituency B
> elects a person from North America and a person from Latin America; and
> Constituency C elects a person from North America and another from Latin
> America. End result: each constituency has, on its own, produced as much
> geographic diversity as it possibly could, and yet the end result could be
> that only two world regions are represented on the Council.
>
> I would be very interested to see how you propose to avoid this problem
> while staying in the constituency model.
>
> An integrated SG model, by contrast, can impose proportions on the six
> seats as a whole, thereby ensuring that most if not all regions are
> represented.
>
> *Q2: How does a constituency-based model apportion Council seats among
> Constituencies when they are of different size?
> *
> Let's suppose there is an "old constituency" that has 50 members, and a
> "new" constituency that starts and gets recognized by the Board, and has
> only 10 initial members (or even less). How many Council seats does each
> constituency get? Do they inherently get the same number of seats simply by
> virtue of the fact that they are constituencies? Or does their
> representation on the Council reflect their relative size? If the latter,
> who decides what allocation principle is used, when there is no
> pre-established SG decision-making method? And once Council seats depend on
> membership size, what is to stop one constituency from extending membership
> in an overly easy way, regardless of appropriate criteria, to inflate its
> relative size? Will the Board monitor this?
>
> These questions are not impossible to answer, but they obviously impose a
> very complex layer of organization, monitoring and procedure that an
> integrated SG model does not have to worry about.
> Frankly, Bob and Denise, I could produce about a dozen more questions like
> this. But let's see how you do with these two first.
>
> My point is to put this discussion of SG models on a more solid footing
> with an equal burden of proof. If you can convince us that a
> constituency-based model handles such basic and obvious issues as well as an
> integrated model,we'd be more inclined to change our view.
> --MM
>  ------------------------------
>  [1] <#_ftnref> *We would envision an Execeutive Committee comprised of
> one delegate from each recognized Constituency.*
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
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