NCSG Statement Explaining Our Deferral of the Vote

[Mary.Wong at LAW.UNH.EDU]

The Council had a vigorous and long debate on the issue at our public meeting yesterday. As soon as transcripts and recordings are available, we'll post them as it is hard to capture the intensity of the discussion via email summary. For now I thought it might be helpful to add a few comments to the ongoing discussion on this list:

- the NCSG Policy Committee works on a consensus basis, and is comprised of the Councilors, SG chair and official representatives from each Constituency, including candidate constituencies. The decision to request a deferral was not unanimous, but was arrived at after long discussion (into Tuesday night and Wednesday, up to almost the time for the Council meeting!) and consideration of the views of members, as expressed on this list and the public comments submitted so far.

- in addition to the formal NCSG statement that was read out at the Council meeting, several Councilors and members who were present emphasized that the deferral request was not a delay tactic (as other SG reps alleged) but a genuine attempt to defend due process as well as highlight new developments that might justify further discussions and possible amendments for the final vote - including at least part of the new NPOC proposal (submitted to the Drafting team over the weekend), recent comments this week by a few GAC members (including Portugal's), and changes to the draft motion occasioned at least in part by updates from the Red Cross and IOC reps at this meeting. 

- the NCSG PC and EC reps present at the council meeting agreed, upon request by other community members and Councilors, that it would be open to calling a special Council meeting upon closure of the initial public comment period (23 March) without waiting for the reply period to end (14 April), as that would allow for sufficient public comment while still ensuring that the Council would not be asked ultimately to vote on a moot point (as 14 April would be 2 days after applications close for new gTLDs). However, we requested that the special Council meeting take place only if and after the Drafting Team has time to consider all the public comments submitted and possible revision of the motion as a result.

- the DT will recommence discussions next week and start reviewing public comments submitted by then. Thank you to the members who have written in so far; if you have not but have views on the issue, please do so at http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/ioc-rcrc-proposal-02mar12-en.htm

- finally, a reminder that this issue and the motion before the Council is only in respect of the top level for this first round. More work will then commence on second level protectikns for this and all future rounds, as well as issues concerning top level protection for the second and future rounds. This last may include consideration of the formal request the ICANN Board made a few days ago, to both the GNSO and the GAC, for policy advice regarding the recent request by intergovernmental organizations for additional top and second level protections for their names as well.

I hope this helps!
Mary

Sent from a mobile device; please excuse brevity and any grammatical or typographical errors.

"Alain Berranger <alain.berranger at GMAIL.COM>" <alain.berranger at GMAIL.COM> wrote:


The inclusion of a reference to the NPOC proposal cannot be interpretated
by anyone as a reason for deferral. The statement being read under NCSG is
actually by NCSG-PC where only 1 NPOC member's opinion does not represent
an official NPOC position.




On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org> wrote:

> Deb,
>
> RedCross / IOC's request for special rights was a subject of significant
> discussion at Monday's NCSG Policy Committee Meeting and also at the NCSG
> membership meeting yesterday.  The members of the committee agreed with the
> deferral.  You can listen to the recordings of these meetings or read the
> transcripts to get a more precise understanding of the position.  Pity you
> did not participate in any of these discussions.  NPOC representative
> (acting vice-chair of NPOC) Alain Berranger confirmed in an email to the
> NCSG-PC some changes he wanted to the NCSG stmt and they were incorporated.
>  See here:
>   http://mailman.ipjustice.org/pipermail/pc-ncsg/2012-March/000172.html
>
> It is worth noting, however, that positions by the NCSG are not taken by
> the constituencies, but by the individual members on the PC, which includes
> 2 NPOC representatives.
>
> Thanks,
> Robin
>
>
> On Mar 14, 2012, at 1:53 PM, Hughes, Debra Y. wrote:
>
> Robin,****
> ** **
> Robin,****
> ** **
> Can you please clarify the precise results of the vote by NCSG on this
> decision for deferral, including whether there was any opposition to this
> decision by any NCSG constituency?    ****
> ** **
> Thanks,****
> Debbie****
>    ****
> ** **
> *Debra Y. Hughes *
> *Senior Counsel *
> ** **
> *American Red Cross*
> 2025 E Street, NW****
> Washington, D.C. 20006****
> 202.303.5356 (p)****
> 202.303.0143 (f)****
> *Debra.Hughes at redcross.org*
> ** **
> *From:* NCSG-Discuss [mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] *On Behalf Of
> *Robin Gross
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 14, 2012 3:51 PM
> *To:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> *Subject:* [NCSG-Discuss] NCSG Statement Explaining Our Deferral of the
> Vote****
> ** **
> NCSG finds it impossible to bypass ICANN’s bottom-up policy development
> process in this way.  At a time when multi-stakeholder processes on the
> Internet are being challenged, this proposal is both questionable on the
> merits, and contrary to ICANN’s processes. Therefore, the NCSG has no
> option at this stage but to defer the vote at least until the public
> comment period is closed.****
> Here are the reasons for our deferral.****
> One of the most important parts of the ICANN process is the public comment
> period, which allows public engagement and permits those affected by
> policies to express their views. Public comments constitute a
> quintessential part of iCANN’s ecosystem.  How can ICANN depend on public
> comments when it makes a decision before they have all been received? The
> council should not hold a vote on something as important as the implicit
> creation of a new form of reserved names, especially one that singles out
> some international organisations for special consideration while ignoring
> others without full comment. The critical importance of public comments was
> recognized by our colleague Mr. Steve Metalitz, chair of the IPC in a
> recent comment. Mr Metalitz said:****
> “In trying to make the decision before the public comment period has
> closed, ICANN has failed to fulfill its pledge, in the Affirmation of
> Commitments, to employ “responsive consultation procedures that provide
> detailed explanations of the basis for decisions, including how comments
> have influenced the development of policy consideration,” and to
> “continually assess[] and improv[e] the processes by which ICANN receives
> public input (including adequate explanation of decisions taken and the
> rationale thereof).” [1]****
> We could not agree more with this statement by our fellow stakeholder
> group – the IPC.****
> The community should take the necessary time to hear all the views on this
> issue and examine other proposals, such as those from Portugal earlier this
> week as well as the proposal from the Not-for-profit Operations
> Constituency that are intended to create a more fair and less arbitrary
> standard for reserved names.****
> The NCSG-Policy Committee believes that this is a critical policy issue
> and needs the full guidance of the public comments before it can properly
> decide how to vote, and thus requests a deferral of this vote.****
> ------------------------------
> [1]
> http://www.icann.org/en/documents/affirmation-of-commitments-30sep09-en.htm,
> paragraphs 7 and 9.1.c.****
>
>
>


-- 
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
Member, Board of Directors, CECI,
http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca
Trustee, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation, www.gkpfoundation.org
NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org
interim Membership Committee Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger