[NCUC-EC] Response to Bill's e-mail of 14 September

[Edward Morris]

Hi Bill,


It's now been 5 days and I've only heard from Ed on the question of whether
to hold a special meeting on bylaws in BA on Friday 15 Nov.  Ed appears to
be wavering in light of the slow boot up and revised larger schedule and
I'm opposed, so unless someone argues differently in the next 24 hours (and
hopefully, provides evidence that there will be sufficient members there to
make it work) I will write to Glen and cancel the room request.  We can use
our normal Constituency Day agenda talking about the progress of Ed's
committee


- I trust this has been done. Given all of the complexities of timing
involved in this effort, it is best we do this methodically and in
accordance with the reality of, as you are fond of saying, people’s
bandwidth. Rafik’s observation / suggestion that we get this concluded by
Singapore is a realistic goal.

- I do want to address the “slow boot up” observation. Let’s review the
facts: 1) The initial design – one getting all of this done by November-
was your proposal. It also was a very good proposal, realistic and well
designed. It’s a shame we have to dump it. Due to the realities of ICANN
approval. 2) You asked Tapani and I to get things up and running while you
were on holiday. We did and have a Committee membership of sixteen
volunteers and a web presence. 3) You returned from holiday and asked us to
put things on hold because ICANN might have a problem with our timing. Fair
enough. They did.

Obviously we should not have rolled this out until we knew of ICANN’s
timing. We did. Now that we know this, everything needs to be redesigned.
We’re having a ‘new’ boot up, not so much a slow one. We’ve been hampered a
bit by the fact not everyone is on your timetable. You had your break in
August; Tapani had his in September. I’m in the middle of eight days of
travel and work. Despite this, I’ve been working on this daily and will
report in another post where we are at.

- I do wish to object to one part of your comment: this is not Ed’s
committee. I think what we have here is a consequence of the different
mindsets of a lawyer and a social scientist, both well intentioned people
but with different ways of looking at things.

First, if we are going to look at things personally this effort is being
facilitated by both Tapani and myself at your charge. It is not, though,
our Committee. It is an EC Committee. That’s important for reasons I’ll now
try to explain.

The other teams are technically your teams, organized per Bylaws § IV©(2).
Of course, that’s not the way we’re functioning but in the end, per the
Bylaws, the teams belong to the Chair.

The Bylaws Revision Committee is different and is set up to help the EC
propose revisions per Bylaws §VIII(a). Does this mean anything to us today
in a practical sense: absolutely not. Why care then?

It is now obvious that this Revision is going to continue into the new
year. We don’t know the identity of next years Chair or regional members of
the Executive Committee. I wish all of my colleagues, yourself included,
well if they wish to run for re-election (if eligible). We just don’t know
what is going to happen yet. So in that regard, it’s important for next
years group to know who inherits responsibility for what.

Of greater importance is the Board. I’ve read the archives of the struggles
that resulted in our current document. I don’t believe some members of the
Board were acting in a rational good faith way all of the time. I couldn’t
have higher respect for Milton, Robin and those who led the fight for
approval. It’s a bit amazing we even exist today.

I don’t anticipate struggles of that sort with this Board. Still, I want to
make sure all of our I’s are dotted and all of our t’s are crossed. Not
Ed’s committee, not Tapani’s committee, EC Committee reporting to EC for EC
revision proposal.

Pedantic? Definitely. Harmless? I hope so. A synonym for pedantic is
meticulous and that’s how I always try to approach legal drafting.









1) Policy Committee

A NCUC PC list serve still exists, maintained by Robin. <
pc-ncuc at ipjustice.org>  We should create a new one alongside the others at
lists.ncuc.org, and boot up the PC in a manner consistent with our extant
bylaws V.  All councilors originating in NCUC; "Members...who are serving
on GNSO Working Groups, ICANN Advisory Committees, Presidential committees
and other policy bodies (standing or ad hoc) within the ICANN process [I'd
interpret this to include the two NCUC reps to the NCSG PC}; and "Any NCUC
delegates to the NCSG Executive Committee (in an ex officio capacity),"
e.g. I'd join.

The PC adopts positions, replies to public comment periods, etc.  For
issues that will go to the GNSO, the Councilors and two delegates carry the
position into the NCSG PC for sorting out with NPOC and possible adoption
as NCSG positions.

The precise composition of the PC could be tweaked in the revision.

thoughts…?




- My initial conversations with some of those who seem to want to be core
members, per se, of the Bylaws Revision team indicates some thoughts about
the PC that are more than mere tweaks. I need to make it clear that these
are not my thoughts and, in fact, I don’t believe I’ll wind up supporting
them. That said…

For CD (as proposed below) I’d suggest we change the 9:45-10:40 period to
read simply ‘Bylaws Revision’. The concept of a Policy Committee will
obviously be included in the discussion. There is no need to break it out
as a separate discussion topic. I’d like to keep things as fluid as
possible at this point because we don’t have any way of knowing where we’ll
be at with the Bylaws Revision two months from now.

As for starting up a PC now…I’d suggest that should wait for the new EC to
do it. It makes no sense to be starting this in late November. Positions
and bodies will be changing in the weeks following Buenos Aires. We’ll know
from the work of the Revision Committee and the CD discussion under that
banner whether a P.C. is even wanted (I vote yes). The new EC can then roll
it out as one of their first acts, or not, with everyone in their new
roles. Of course, no harm in letting everyone know what the tentative plans
are.





2) Constituency Day

For CD, I propose this tentative schedule

9:00-9:15 Welcome etc

9:15-9:45 Pending Elections

9:45-10:40 Policy Committee and Bylaws

10:40-11:00 Coffee

11:00-11:45 Visit of the ATRT II Team

11:45-12:30 AOB  (please advise of items to cover.  do we want to talk to
GACers again?  I'd suggest only if we have a specific agenda, not more
"getting to know you.")

Reactions, please...



- As above for the 9:45-10:40 time frame.

At the last NCSG meeting Avri suggested writing a letter to ATRT with some
of our concerns about the documents policy, DIDP and the like. I sense we
want to focus on their report in their visit, but I’d be happy to make a
few slides, non-confrontational linked to the AoC, if that would be helpful.

It was a real coup having the GAC visit last meeting. We probably shouldn’t
wear out our welcome. We can always find things to talk about but I’m not
aware of anything more pressing than normal as we sit here two months out.




3) Friday 15 November

I did chat informally with Olga Cavalli the possibility of us doing
something substantive together on Friday 15 if we don't do a bylaws
meeting.  Whoever got there in time could come.  Both sides need to decide
if it's worth pursuing.  We were thinking something combining the South
School of IG + NCUC might be fun, like a half day meeting off site (e.g. at
university) geared toward civil society outreach, like what we did in
Durban.  Anyone have any thoughts on this option?


-Olga is a wonderful person, I was on the campus of the University of
Buenos Aires on Monday and think it would be a great site, Wolfgang
proposed doing something like this as far back as Los Angeles – it would be
nice to do if we could. I’d suggest downsizing, though, given everything
else going on.

Olga would certainly know the logistics and how hard it would be to put
something together. Ideally part of whatever we did could be conducted in
Spanish. I know the words IPC brings anxiety to our community, but there is
an IPC member attorney who lives in Buenos Aires whom I believe would be
receptive to participating if he could fit it into his schedule. Always
nice to work across constituency lines.

That said, anything like this places a disproportionate burden on Bill and
the other academics in our Constituency. You guys seem to have a really
full schedule this fall. The decision should be yours.

If you decide you want to try it, I fully support the idea and will get
there the morning of the 14th ready to do anything I can to help. I
understand, though, it may be overload for those whose participation would
be most essential.

Thanks for all of your proposals Bill. Sorry for the delayed response – a
mixture of work, travel and extortionate bandwidth charges at my hotel.

Ed
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