"NCUC opposes constituencies"

[Milton L Mueller]

Well, despite his mischaracterization of our view, this is quite a remarkable concession - they are in effect conceding that our arguments against the Constituency-Silo model are correct!
We can use this against him if we need to.

________________________________
From: Non-Commercial User Constituency [mailto:NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of William Drake
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 6:01 AM
To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS] "NCUC opposes constituencies"

Ay yi yi

Begin forwarded message:


From: William Drake <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch<mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>>
Date: October 17, 2009 11:57:43 AM GMT+02:00
To: Roberto Gaetano <roberto at icann.org<mailto:roberto at icann.org>>
Cc: At-Large Worldwide <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org<mailto:at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>>, ALAC Working List <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org<mailto: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<mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************



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