motion on Chatham

[William Drake]

Hi

So on today's NCUC/SG call we discussed inter alia the draft GNSO public comment on the AoC ARR.  Again, in the last council call and in the drafting team formed subsequently I raised NC's concerns about the staff recommendation of very small drafting teams, and also noted that the draft proposal didn't specify any means for review team communication and coordination with the community.  Hence included in the DT text was, 

"But at the same time, it would
be undesirable for the teams to work in hermetically sealed boxes cut off from the
community, or to rely only on the public comment periods for input on the review processes.
A mechanism should be established to allow an appropriate measure of two-way
communication when needed.
The GNSO Council therefore proposes that review team members drawn from the AC/SOs
be mandated to periodically update their nominating bodies on the main developments and
issues of direct relevance to them. In parallel, these team members should be able to solicit
inputs from their SO/ACs when this would be helpful, and be prepared to pass along
unsolicited inputs that their nominating bodies agree would be particularly important to take
under consideration."

Subsequently, a concern was expressed that as stated these requirements could increase the politicization of the process, e.g. if RT members report back to their nominating AC/SOs that person x said y about actors/processes z, or AC/SOs ask about the same, etc.  It was thus suggested that there be some limitation on the detail level, i.e. not necessarily on what was said, but by whom.  Hence, to garner the necessary support for the above, the DT added, 

"Obviously, any such communications would need to respect reasonable
restrictions like the review teams’ adherence to the Chatham House rule, and the SO/ACs
should be expected to exercise prudence and to only make use of the opportunity when it is
necessary to support the teams and/or convey major concerns.1

fn 1 The Chatham House Rule is: "When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham
House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor
the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed."
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/chathamhouserule"

While this compromise facilitated the quick consensus needed to have a motion for consideration on tomorrow's Council call, when I shared the document with this list a number of folks expressed misgivings about the mention of the Chatham House rule.  That being so, we can propose an amendment to the motion striking this mention.  I don't know that it will pass, but even if not we get to make the points we always do about transparency, for the record.  (And of course, bear in mind, this is just a GNSO response to the public comment period, it won't determine anything.  But hopefully the Selectors and chosen RT members will take on board the other stuff in defining RT procedures and methods.)

So, the motion could be to replace the above text with the following:

"Communications between the review teams and the SO/ACs should be prudent and necessary to support the teams and/or convey major concerns."

Or something similar, if anyone cares to wordsmith (it's been a long day), bearing in mind the need to meet the other SG's concerns at least part of the way for an amendment to have a chance.

Arvi pointed out that having led the drafting I shouldn't (can't?) be the one to propose an amendment to it, so another councilor should, if we want that.  Rafik?

Best,

Bill


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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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