"NCUC opposes constituencies"

[William Drake]

Ay yi yi

Begin forwarded message:

> From: William Drake <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
> Date: October 17, 2009 11:57:43 AM GMT+02:00
> To: Roberto Gaetano <roberto at icann.org>
> Cc: At-Large Worldwide <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>, ALAC  
> Working List <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
> Subject: Re: [At-Large] "placeholder" reps not placeholders?
>
> Hi Roberto,
>
> May I just correct once again one whopping bit of bad info, please.
>
> On Oct 17, 2009, at 8:16 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>
>> Beau,
>>
>>>
>>> By the way, is it true what I heard that the three newly
>>> appointed GNSO people have now been hard-wired in to two-year
>>> terms? I don't really see a constituency model working under
>>> those circumstances. Who's going to join a constituency if
>>> they have to wait two years to be able to directly elect a
>>> representative? No consumer group I am aware of is going to
>>> want to do that.
>>
>>
>> I think that we will need to clarify many things in Seoul, one of  
>> which is
>> the reason for certain decisions of the SIC.
>>
>> For instance, the SIC has decided, after long discussion, not to  
>> have an
>> automatic link between creation of a constituency and establishment  
>> of a
>> seat in the Council. The reasons against this position include what  
>> you
>> correctly point out, i.e. that it will be more difficult to get  
>> people's
>> interest if there's no immediate representation in terms of voting  
>> rights.
>> However, there are also reasons for taking this approach. One of  
>> these is
>> that we have to avoid the "frivolous" creation of constituencies  
>> for the
>> simple purpose of getting a vote. A bit like create empty shells as
>> registrars to have a higher firing power for getting valuable  
>> names. Another
>> observation is that in the "old" council it was exactly the fact  
>> that the
>> creation of a new constituency would have altered the voting  
>> balance that de
>> facto prevented the creation of any new constituency in 10 years.
>>
>> But the main point for the SIC to maintain the concept of  
>> constituency,
>> against the open opposition of NCUC, but to keep it without an  
>> automatic
>
> NCUC is NOT and has NEVER been against the concept of  
> constituencies, period.  I do not understand what the purpose would  
> be in telling ALAC people something about NCUC that is patently  
> untrue, but it really does not facilitate trust building and the  
> collegial resolution of the issue. The charter NCUC submitted, and  
> which you set aside without comment, has an page of clear language  
> about the formation and operation of constituencies in Section 2.3. http://gnso.icann.org/files/gnso/en/improvements/ncsg-petition-charter.pdf 
>   I would encourage you to read it if you have not.  A few key bits  
> of note include:
>
> -------------
>
> *Constituencies are self-defined groupings of NCSG members organized  
> around some shared policy goals (e.g. consumer protection, privacy);  
> shared identity (e.g., region or country of origin, gender, language  
> group); type of organization (e.g., research networks, philanthropic  
> foundations) – or any other grouping principle that might affect  
> members’ stance on domain names policy.
>
> *There is no requirement that NCSG members join a constituency.
>
> *When at least 3 organizational members or at least 10 individual  
> NCSG members volunteer to join the Constituency on the public list  
> within two months of the publication of the notification of intent  
> the prospective Constituency becomes eligible to schedule a meeting  
> (which can be either in person or online).
>
> *The eligible constituency holds a public meeting(s) to draft a  
> charter and appoint an official representative of the constituency.  
> The meeting(s) can be online but must be open to observation by the  
> general public.
>
> *The proposed constituency charter is submitted to the NCSG Policy  
> Committee for ratification.
>
> *Once accepted by the PC the constituency application will be sent  
> to the ICANN Board for approval. The Board shall also serve as the  
> vehicle for appeals to NCSG decisions on the recognition of a  
> constituency.
>
> *Constituencies have a right to: 1.	Place one voting representative  
> on the Policy Committee; 2.	Delegate members to GNSO working groups  
> and task forces; 3.	Issue statements on GNSO Policy Development  
> Processes which are included in the
> official NCSG response, but marked as constituency positions, and  
> not necessarily the position of NCSG as a whole.
>
> -------------
>
> I do not know how this possibly can be characterized as opposition  
> to the concept of a constituency.
>
> The principal difference with the charter you've imposed on us, as  
> we've explained time and again, is that we do not think it wise to  
> set up constituencies as purely self-regarding silos that compete  
> against each other for council seats, recognition and influence, and  
> thereby spend their time fighting and jockeying for position rather  
> than working together to advance noncommercial public interest  
> perspectives in ICANN.  We think it is better for constituencies to  
> collaborate in an integrated community.  Hence, we did not think it  
> sensible to hard wire council seats (which would get absurd if the  
> number of constituencies exceeds six, as it hopefully will...we're  
> glad you agreed on this), and instead suggested that GNSO Council  
> Representatives be elected directly by all NCSG members in an annual  
> SG-wide vote.  To secure a council seat, a constituency on consumer  
> protection, registrants, privacy, gender, freedom of speech or  
> whatever else would simply have to be a vibrant group that puts  
> forward a candidate and vision that others find persuasive.  Given  
> that noncommercial people tend to share certain broad values and  
> priorities, I'm hard pressed to imagine that, for example, a solid  
> consumer constituency that actually comprises noncommercial actors  
> and advocates for the public interest would have a hard time getting  
> support from people who care about privacy, speech, and so on.  So  
> it'd be a matter of persuading colleagues rather than having a  
> birthright fiefdom within which one does one's own thing and ignores  
> everyone else.
>
> We understand that questions have been raised about voting formula  
> and whether it might make sense to put in place mechanisms to  
> prevent the 'capture' of the council, and we've said we're open to  
> viable suggestions on that score.  Have yet to hear one. One might  
> add that if NCUC's proposed charter had been approved and  
> constituency formation were made as easy as we'd hoped, the NCUC  
> itself would have ceased to exist, and those of our current 80  
> organizational and 87 individual members who wanted to off and form  
> constituencies on privacy, gender, or whatever else would have done  
> so.  So there'd be no NCUC to be capturing anything in the first  
> place.  In contrast, under the SIC charter, NCUC would be nuts to  
> disband, inter alia because it'd leave our members homeless,  
> especially the individuals.  Hard to see how that would be good for  
> ICANN.
>
>> voting power, against the obvious concerns of who wants to build new
>> constituencies, is the leit-motiv that has guided the whole process  
>> of the
>> review: move the focus away from the vote, which is by its nature  
>> divisive,
>> onto the consensus building process.
>> New constituencies will not have the right to appoint their "own"
>> councillors, but will have the right to participate in WGs and  
>> other policy
>> making processes and bodies, will have support from ICANN staff and
>> resources to self-organize, will be able to participate with their  
>> own
>> representatives in the Executive Committee of the NCSG, etc.
>> In simple words, what we have tried to do is to create a balance and
>> hopefully a possible way to coexist and, in time, to collaborate,  
>> for all
>> the different components of the wide and diverse non-commercial  
>> internet
>> community. Somebody on this list has spoken about "reconsideration"  
>> of the
>> Board's decision. This is surely possible. But what I would propose  
>> is to
>> try to discuss and understand if what the SIC has proposed can work  
>> in
>> practice, although it is not going to be perfect for anybody, before
>> shooting it down and start all over again. This discussion is for  
>> me one of
>> the main priorities, if not the first priority altogether, in  
>> Seoul, which
>> as you all know will mark the end of my term as Director.
>>
>> The ALAC and the NCUC are two big parts of this picture, the only  
>> organized
>> bodies in ICANN so far (for non-commercial users), I personally  
>> think that
>> the first step can be to have a joint discussion in Seoul. Bill's  
>> proposal
>> of meeting in an event that is not only work, but also social, goes  
>> in this
>> sense, methinks.
>
> Here we agree.  And I think finding common ground will be a lot  
> easier if ALAC colleagues are not laboring under the false  
> impression that NCUC somehow wants to prevent them or other from  
> forming constituencies, hence the above.  Our main concern has been  
> that we first have an opportunity to work out a final, non-divisive  
> charter with the board, after which constituency launches could  
> begin in earnest.  In contrast, launching constituencies under the  
> SIC charter would likely lock us into that framework and engender  
> the very fragmentation the meeting is intended to help overcome.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill

***********************************************************
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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