ALAC Response to GNSO Restructuring Questions (AL.ALAC-ST.0908-1)

STATUS OF THIS DOCUMENT: Final - vote of the ALAC passed the response on 17th September.

BACKGROUND TO THIS RESPONSE: In an email of 5th September 2008, Denise Michel, ICANN's Vice-President of Policy Development, requested the ALAC (amongst others) consider five questions the Board of ICANN is considering with respect to GNSO Council restructuring, and provide any comments on or before 18th September 2008 for consideration by the Board of ICANN at its September meeting. That original request may be found at this link.

Issue 1 ­ Role of the Third NomCom Appointee (NCA)

Having a non-voting NCA sets a bad precedent within ICANN. Assuming the voting proposed (similar) thresholds are accepted, it is unclear how the carefully crafted voting thresholds can accommodate having the NCA vote at on the Council only. Essentially, that NCA is playing the role of a Liaison from nowhere.

Since the Board has set the House numbers as 12:6 before NCA, it makes some sense to allocate the third NCA to the User House. That gives all NCA's the same ability to influence outcomes, and returns to the normal state of NCA's being full voting members of the bodies to which they are appointed.

Issue 2: Council Leadership; Election of GNSO Council Chair

The proposal calls for a 60% vote from both houses, leading to the potential of deadlock. The proposed (minority) alternative (assuming the NCA is still on the main Council), the NCA option having that person be the Chair MAYBE, makes no sense at all. If the person will definitely be the Chair, the NomCom can attempt to find a person with the correct qualifications. To tell the NomCom that the person has to have a specific balance of criteria to be a good Councilor AND also needs to have organizational and group management skills to potentially be the chair is pushing it a bit, and will likely make it hard to recruit candidates who want to deal with that level of uncertainty.

We favor the weighted voting option with one vice-chair (perhaps not from the same house as the Chair). Another alternative suggested is that each house elects a chair and they alternate, but that seems to be an administrative and logistical nightmare.

Two vice chairs seems like overkill, but does have the merit of having one from each house.

Issue 3 - Election of Board Seats

As already stated, ALAC would prefer a resolution where all Board members are elected by the entire Council. Essentially, we shared the same concern as those raised and stated more eloquently by the Board.

Among the alternatives, we favor the weighted voting method. The WG discussed but did not ultimately put forward the idea that each of the two houses might be responsible for nominating one of the positions, but it would be voted on by both - this may address the perceived inequality. It is important to also ensure that there is a viable transition process to get to the new methodology (there were some perceptions that the proposed WG methodology had a problem in that area).

Another suggestion was that there be bicameral voting (perhaps 60% of one house and 40% of the other required). But that, as discussed in the section on Chair elections, could lead to deadlocks.

Issue 4 ­ Voting Thresholds

The ALAC did not previously take a position other than to say there was a LOT of give and take by all parties to get to the proposed thresholds. With the exception of removal of an NCA, although some of the thresholds may end up being unworkable, it is not clear that a better set can be crafted at this point.

With regard to the removal of an NCA, the ALAC had reservations, particularly with the removal on a house-level NCA by a vote of only that house. The term "for cause" made the threshold barely acceptable, in that the House would have to justify to the Board why the NCA was being removed. Nevertheless, if some activity is severe enough to warrant removal, it would likely be apparent to both houses, and requiring some level of support in both houses would be far more transparent.

Issue 5 ­ Implementation

Implementation by January 2009 is very aggressive. Hopefully Draft Bylaws will be available quickly for comment and review.

Stakeholder Group issues are indeed likely to require focus. As noted in the ALAC's statement to the Board submitted on August 13 (see http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-14aug08-en.htm ) the ALAC feels that the new structure is sufficiently cumbersome that attracting new constituencies, and ensuring that the additional hierarchy of Stakeholder Groups does not add an onerous administrative burden is going to be difficult. In particular we noted:

• ICANN (and the stakeholder groups) will have to make it as easy as possible to create and operate new constituencies. The requirements they must meet must be reasonable and applied with consistency.
• These new entities must feel comfortable that they will be able to participate in the Policy Development Process as discretely identifiable bodies, at a level comparable to (and not subservient to) the long-established players (of course factoring in size). Without that guarantee, there is little reason for them to make the considerable effort needed to enter into GNSO processes.
• The new addition level of hierarchy moving from GNSO->Constituency to GNSO->Stakeholder Group->Constituency (or as per the consensus proposal GNSO->House-Stakeholder Group->Constituency) must be managed to minimize the need for additional complexity and additional volunteer effort. Thin layers will be, in our opinion, absolutely mandatory.

As noted in an ALAC statement to be sent to the Board prior to its September meeting, the ALAC feels that openness and transparency at the Stakeholder Group level will also be crucial.

Vanda
issue 1 - makes sense to me.
issue 2 - I am against the idea of NCA be a “maybe chair”. This is nonsense.
But I can understand 2 VC – we had a good use in GAC, and being a volunteer position, have someone that can help when you are busy , will help, besides, the two houses will have more balanced voices in any “petit committee debates”.
issue 3 - Agree – board members are not to represent any specific interest. I am with Alan preferring the weighted voting method.
issue 4 - I would support the idea of one house majority vote ratified by the
majority of the other house. The initiative shall be within the house where the fact has happened, and once voted presented to the other house to get their position.
issue 5 - Agree – though everybody is eager to have this working, better to put a more realistic time frame, I would say after first 2009 F2F meeting in February/March 2009.

contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2008-09-16 16:11:50 GMT