[At-Large] GNSO Council Motion on Cross-Community Working Groups

[Nicolas Adam]

Thank you very much for this Bill.

Much appreciated.

Nicolas

On 19/01/2012 5:04 AM, William Drake wrote:
> Hi Nicolas
>
> On Jan 18, 2012, at 8:21 PM, Nicolas Adam wrote:
>>
>> So on the 3 options, I don't know which i would push. Note that I 
>> sometimes expect the people that are able to do politics and 
>> compromise to use my principled opposition as best they see. This is 
>> why i voted for them. I try to give munition as well as myopinion but 
>> I am happy to defer to our elected representatives who are in 
>> positions to see more globally (and strategically) than I can with my 
>> limited experience .... .
>
> I've asked Council to defer this to San Jose, so there's time for us 
> all to mull how to approach...
>>
>> Bill, a few questions (for when you have time, of course, and with 
>> thx in advance):
>>
>> why wouldn't an amendment pass?
>
> There's a pretty strong desire across the industry SGs to have clear, 
> consistent, and (in my view, overly) restrictive rules for how CCWGs 
> operate.  This reflects a number of factors, e.g.  Council is all 
> about process formalization, which has long driven NCUC a bit nuts.  I 
> guess the most charitable interpretation I could give it is that for 
> companies with skin in the game and contracts, lawyers, and potential 
> legal action as the environment this is somewhat understandable, but 
> it extends down to all levels of minutia and circumstances where such 
> considerations wouldn't seem so imperative…there've even been meetings 
> at which people said that our informal topical chat dinners with the 
> board should be minuted and so on…it's just become so instinctive that 
> it's the default.  From that perspective, CCWGs apparently look like 
> out of control exercises that could spin the earth off its axis.
>
> There is also fear that CCWGs could try to set "Policy" and thus 
> end-run around Council, particularly in cases where there's opposition 
> or a desire for changes in some corner of the GNSO.  In principle it's 
> understandable that SGs and their reps would want to preserve their 
> prerogatives and roles under the Bylaws, and indeed we presumably 
> wouldn't want to see this happening a lot more than it already does 
> since that'd equally erode our ability to meaningfully participate and 
> influence things.  In practice though this concern has arguably been 
> overblown, inter alia for reasons Avri's mentioned.  Here and 
> elsewhere, the JAS WG process brought this to a head, e.g. lot of 
> people got freaked out about JAS reports and recs going to the board 
> for consideration before Council had managed to act on them.  The 
> story here would take a few pages to really lay out and I don't have 
> time now, maybe someone else would care to recapitulate.  There's also 
> the related and problematic boundary between what's policy and what's 
> implementation of extant policy etc.
>
> So from the various industry standpoints, insisting that CCWGs proceed 
> from single joint charters and everything waits while the respective 
> SO/ACs go through their processes---which in the GNSO case can be 
> particularly laborious given the diversity of interests and the org 
> culture---is viewed as imperative. But several of us said yesterday, 
> this seems overly restrictive and one could imagine cases in which 
> other chartering SO/ACs might want a more flexible approach.
>
> Again, JAS was at the core of this—I don't recall similar complaints 
> about JIG, Rec. 6, or other CCWGs.  The baseline notion in telecom and 
> other sectors that regulation should balance a little between 
> commercial and social considerations (for universal service, 
> nondiscrimination etc.) just doesn't seem to be accepted as applicable 
> by some in this field.  Problem is, Council approved the original 
> charter, and all the discussion that led up to that should have made 
> clear some sort of balancing could ensue.  But things changed post hoc 
> for reasons I won't get into here…Maybe Avri, Rafik or others would 
> care to amplify.
>
>> and what was the outreach vote that had the GNSO divided?
>
> Another long story…we've discussed this recently on the monthly calls 
> (for which there are transcripts and recordings) and list, but the 
> bottom line was there was a working group that put forward a plan for 
> a multistakeholder Outreach Task Force 
> gnso.icann.org/drafts/otf-draft-charter-18oct11-en.pdf 
> <http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/otf-draft-charter-18oct11-en.pdf> comprising 
> reps of the SGs that'd assess GNSO-related outreach (particularly viz. 
> developing country folks) and provide an umbrella framework for 
> coordination of efforts going forward; a lot of people had expressed 
> support for the concept and it didn't seem likely to be a major bone 
> of contention; at the 11th hour CSG decided to oppose the motion on 
> this on the grounds that everything should be done at the 
> SG/constituency level with resources provided, and asked for a 
> deferral so they could propose an alternative, which was presented as 
> likely being reasonably minor amendments that'd preserve the overall 
> effort; NCSG supported the motion which had already been deferred 
> twice and was laying around forever, and asked for a vote; we lost, in 
> part because CPH thought CSG should have more time if they wanted; and 
> at the next meeting, on the 12th hour, CSG came back with a motion 
> that basically set aside the OTF (surprise!), which nobody seconded, 
> so it wasn't voted, which left the issue in limbo and to be revisited 
> in San Jose.  To which I should add that there's also a broader 
> ICANN-wide staff-led outreach discussion about which it is apparently 
> impossible to get the documentation; hopefully by SJ more will be 
> clear and we can take a holistic look at how outreach is done.  We 
> also need an intra-NC conversation, since apparently we're not all on 
> the same page about outreach as an objective.
>>
>> Can someone comment on the economy/culture of vote trading/politics 
>> between both GNSO's SGs? is there for instance a recent paper 
>> recounting recent negotiations or some such?
>
> I know of no such research.  Would be very interested to read it if 
> someone wanted to take a crack, though.
>
> Best
>
> Bill
>>
>>
>> On 18/01/2012 8:04 AM, William Drake wrote:
>>>> >  I believe that anyone who does vote for it, should be ready to 
>>>> support its principles in any negotiation or risk the same 
>>>> approbation you are concerned about now.  To hope that it will be 
>>>> ok, because ALAC will object may not be the most advisable course. 
>>>>  Then again, US politics has taught me that there does not need to 
>>>> be a necessary connection between how one votes, what one says and 
>>>> what one does, so in the long run, perhaps it is only karma and 
>>>> doing what you think is right that matters.
>>> US politics is a rich vein to mine for depressing lessons, but I'm 
>>> not sure I'd like to embrace that one.  I do suspect though that any 
>>> SO/AC, not just ALAC, that enters into discussion with GNSO will 
>>> only accept rules of engagement they find amenable, so even if GNSO 
>>> sez it wants x that's not the end of the matter.
>>>
>>> We could defer, amend, both.  Any thoughts on my suggestion in that 
>>> regard?
>
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