Fwd: Board appointments to fill 3 non-commercial seats on the new Council (from Roberto)

[William Drake]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Roberto Gaetano" <roberto at icann.org>
> Date: October 1, 2009 1:26:07 PM GMT+02:00
> To: "'At-Large Worldwide'" <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
> Cc: 'Marco Lorenzoni' <marco.lorenzoni at icann.org>
> Subject: Re: [At-Large] Fwd: Board appointments to fill 3	non-
> commercial	seats on the new Council
> Reply-To: At-Large Worldwide <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
>
> Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
>
>>
>> I am not absolutely sure, but I'm reasonably confident the
>> best person to send comments to is Marco Lorenzoni -
>> Marco.Lorenzoni[at]icann.org.
>> He's Director for Organisational Reviews.
>
>
> I copy Marco in this message, but I think that the questions asked are
> really for the Chair of the SIC to answer.
> I am sure that we are going to have a very interesting debate in
> Seoul about
> this, but I can anticipate a few comments.
>
> First of all, the interaction with the community.
> The process that the Board has chosen is modeled on the NomCom,
> although
> simplified. This means that the first step has been a call for
> candidature,
> issued, if I remember correctly (staff might correct me and/or give
> exact
> references), in the beginning of August, with deadline the end of
> August.
> Public discussion of the candidatures was explicitely excluded, in
> the same
> way as you do not have public discussion of the candidatures
> presented to
> the NomCom.
> It is extremely unfortunate that most of ALAC has not paid attention
> to the
> call, that I am sure was posted. Some parts of ALAC were well aware (I
> remember having had a discussion on the EURALO list, for instance),
> and I
> was assuming that all of ALAC was. The reason why I state that it
> was an
> unfortunate fact, is that we have received only 14 candidatures. I
> believe
> that at one point in time staff will publish the summary, including
> percentages by geographic region and gender.
>
> Second question, how the selection was done.
> The whole purpose of the exercise was to appoint people who were
> part of the
> non-commercial community that was not sufficiently represented. That
> included, but was not limited to, geographic regions not represented
> by the
> other NCSG councillors, constituencies to be formed, gender equality.
> For geographic regions, we noted that the current NCUC councillors
> are Bill
> Drake (NA, although with EU domicile), Mary Wong (AP, although with NA
> domicile) and Carlos Souza (LAC). The obvious absence was Africa. We
> considered, therefore, to have an African appointed as a priority.
> For constituencies, we noted thyat the a Consumer Constituency had a
> petition under approval process, that the technical research and
> academia
> has a theoretical representation (one representative appointed
> yearly to the
> NomCom) but no practical presence in the GNSO, that philantropic
> institutions have a growing importance, that non-commercial
> registrants are
> also not represented. But here comes the problem. With the narrow
> set of
> candidates it has been all but easy to cover these needs.
>
> Third question, about the individuals chosen.
> I have to admit that I do not like to make public statements about the
> quality of the candidates when I am part of the panel who makes the
> decision, and even less I would like to get into discussions on
> possible
> alternatives and why the SIC has ended up in not considering them.
> However, there are a couple of things I can say.
> About Rosemary Sinclair, she is the president of the INTUG, which is
> an
> international umbrella organization who has several national consumer
> organizations as members. The fact that ATUG, her employer, is a
> consumer
> organization mainly oriented to business users has been considered,
> but on
> the other hand it has also been considered that the organizations in
> INTUG
> are covering a wide spectrum, geographically and in terms of interest
> groups. There are two points to be taken into account: the first is
> that if
> the objective is ultimately to build a consumer constituency, the
> president
> of the largest consumer organization worldwide could be a good
> starting
> point, and the second is the commitment Rosemary has made to work in
> the
> interest of the non-commercial users worldwide during her tenure at
> the Name
> Council. Noting also that we have checked the references, I have
> personally
> no doubt that she will be very useful for the non-commercial user
> community
> and instrumental in outreaching to different consumer organizations
> that are
> now not involved in ICANN.
> About Debra Hughes, I confess that I am extremely surprised by the
> reaction.
> The International Red Cross has been one of the most frequently quoted
> examples of the type of organization that we hoped to get involved
> in the
> NonCommercial User community. Just few weeks ago in a letter to some
> Board
> members Robin Gross pointed out the fact that now the Red Cross has
> joined
> the NCUC. I find most surprisingly to have objections about having a
> representative of this reputable international organization, twice
> Nobel
> laureate, integrate the Name Council. While I do agree that she has
> an IP
> lawyer backgroung, I would like to stress that she is not in the
> Council as
> an individual, but as a representative of her organization. I wonder
> how
> many Registries and Registrars are represented in their
> constituencies or
> stakeholder groups by lawyers. And even ALAC itself has appointed
> years ago
> a representative to the NomCom who was working for a Registrar. So
> what?
> Maybe it would have been less contentious to have somebody with a
> different
> profile, but I personally feel happy that, given the exceptionally
> small
> number of applicants, we have found people who are well above the
> minimum
> requirements for the job.
>
> I would also like to add a last consideration.
> People have different interests, wear different hats, what is
> important is
> how they engage for accomplishing the mission given to them. There
> are a few
> tasks for these "special" NCSG Cousellors. One of them is outreach, in
> particular in their community. Another one is the ability to work
> together
> with people who have different views, as this will be the case in the
> Council, but even in the House or the Stakeholder Group. Staff has
> done the
> ground work, and prepared tables; the SIC has discussed for several
> days,
> online, by phone and in person, and has formulated a recommendation;
> the
> Board has discussed the recommendation and approved it during a
> teleconference. There has been a lot of work put in, in good faith,
> by a lot
> of people for getting this accomplished on time to have the GNSO
> Council
> seated in Seoul, which will mark a historic change in the GNSO.
> What I will ask now is to give the chosen people, who have little or
> no
> previous experience of ICANN, the benefit of the doubt, and judge
> them by
> their actions in few months from now, and not prejudge them based on
> line
> items on their CVs. The Council has to work together, the NCSG has
> to work
> together, to start pointing fingers a few hours after the
> appointment is not
> a good way to start. Watch their actions closely, criticize them
> bitterly
> (but politely) if they take positions that in your opinion are
> against the
> non-commercial community, but please wait until they act for passing
> judgement.
>
> Best regards,
> Roberto
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***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************


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