Re: [ALSC-Forum] Evaluation of NAIS and ALSC Reports

[L Gallegos]

Well stated, Sandy.  Now, how do we, the majority, get the 
minority (ICANN board) to do it.  All signs are that they will do as 
they have always done - ignore the bylaws or change them to 
reflect what the special interests want.  How do we change that 
when we are NOT represented and ICANN answers to no one?  
DoC will do whatever ICANN wants.

It is this illegitmacy and imbalance that is the problem - the core 
problem.

Leah


On 7 Sep 2001, at 13:41, Sandy Harris wrote:

> 
> Joe Sims wrote:
> > 
> > PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN ICANN - THE AT LARGE DEBATE
> > 
> > Joe Sims*
> > 
> > * What follows is a personal evaluation of these documents. ... I
> > hope it will contribute to the ongoing dialog.
> 
> So here's a personal response.
> 
> > INTRODUCTION
> > 
> > One of the important remaining issues relating to ICANN's
> > organization is how to achieve an appropriate level of public
> > participation in ICANN 
> 
> Yes, indeed.
> 
> > without impairing its ability to effectively carry out its principal
> > mission - to preserve the operational stability of the Domain Name
> > System.
> 
> I don't like this qualification you've added here. Preserving
> stability is not ICANN's principal mission. It is certainly part of
> the mission, but no more so than instigating change in the system, or
> than ensuring that the administration of the system is somehow
> accountable to its users.
> 
> > While there is little disagreement on the concept of public
> > participation, the type and approach have been vigorously debated
> > since before ICANN's creation. 
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > In 2000, ICANN failed to find a consensus position after
> > considerable effort, and fell back to a temporary compromise - the
> > direct election of an ICANN Board member from each of five
> > geographic regions, and the establishment of a blue ribbon At Large
> > Study Committee (ALSC), headed by the former Prime Minister of
> > Sweden Carl Bildt, to seek a final resolution that could achieve
> > consensus support throughout the ICANN community.
> 
> That's not at all how I'd describe the history.
> 
> In the controversy around Stuart Lynn's recent discussion paper on
> alternate roots, ICANN management (quite correctly in my view) claimed
> that principles set out in the White Paper and elsewhere were part of
> ICANN's mandate, and should be treated as part of existing policy.
> 
> As I see it, the notion of nine At Large directors is another such
> case.
> 
> See, for example Dyson's 1998 letter assuring IANA of ICANN's
> excellent intentions:
> 
> http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/ICANN111098.htm
> 
> " ... elect the nine At Large Directors. ... the Board has an
> unconditional
>     mandate to create a membership structure that will elect the At
>     Large Directors of the Board
> 
> " ... the Board, which will consist of the elected representatives of
> the
>       entire Internet community
> 
> " Esther Dyson 
> " Interim Chairman 
> " On Behalf of the ICANN Board 
> 
> And the actual Bylaws attached to that letter have, in Article 9:
> 
> " Each Board after the Initial Board shall be comprised as follows: "
> "   (i) Three (3) Directors nominated by the Address Supporting
> Organization ... "  (ii) Three (3) Directors nominated by the Domain
> Name Supporting Organization,... " (iii) Three (3) Directors nominated
> by the Protocol Supporting Organization ... "  (iv) Nine  (9) At Large
> Directors, ... "   (v) The ... President of the Corporation. 
> 
> This as much a part of the ICANN mandate as the "there can be only
> one" notion about roots that Lynn referred to.
> 
> Methinks the mandate for ALSC is in the bylaws, Article 9:
> 
> " (c) At Large Board members ... shall be elected by a process to be
> determined " ... Such process shall call for election of At Large
> directors by one or more " categories of members of the Corporation
> ...
> 
> The problem here is to determine how to elect nine directors. To do
> that, you likely have to define "members of the Corporation". Ask
> Auerbach about that :-) 
> 
> I don't think the question of reducing the number of At Large
> directors should have arisen, either in the ALSC or the on Board. the
> Board's mandate is to implement the bylaws, not to subvert them.
> 
> The only time I think the question of changing the number of At Large
> directors should come up is if other changes in the Board are made.
> e.g. If a new CCSO is formed and gets seats, I'd say we need to do
> something to maintain balance. Either 4 SOs with two seats each = 8
> and keep the nine At Large, or keep the three seats per SO and
> increase to 12 At Large.  
> 
> > ... The 2000 election had many flaws, ... It is not at all clear
> > that even a massive outreach effort would produce a meaningful
> > increase in the level of real interest in ICANN and its activities.
> 
> True.
> 
> > The NAIS recommendations seem to completely ignore these research
> > results. They call for regional and global elections of half the
> > ICANN Board, with the electorate made up of all "interested" humans,
> 
> As I see it, having half the board openly elected is mandated by the
> bylaws. The question is not whether to do this, but how.
> 
> There is some room to manouvre. The bylaws say the voters should be
> "one or more categories of members of the Corporation", so we need to
> define "members" in some way that allows anyone interested to "join".
> 
> Subscription to the relevant mailing lists would be a reasonable
> defintion, except that the language barrier excludes many and there is
> potential for fraud of several sorts. Perhaps we should work on those
> problems.  
> 
> > and suggest using the same approaches that the evaluations concluded
> > were seriously flawed.
> 
> Yes, we need a better method.
> 
> > ... While conceding that their recommendations do
> > not enjoy consensus support, the NAIS study nevertheless asserts
> > that they represent the only way for ICANN to gain what NAIS calls
> > "legitimacy," although exactly what NAIS intends that to mean is not
> > clear.
> 
> I'd have thought this should be obvious, but I'll spell it out.
> 
> If ICANN is to credibly claim to respresent the interests of Internet
> users, there must be some role for those users in determing ICANN
> policy. Half the Board seats is a bare minimum. Anything less gives
> various special interests a clear majority.
> 
> > ... an organization whose primary responsibility is maintaining the
> > stability of the DNS.
> 
> See my first comment above.
> 
> > The ALSC draft report ... While there are a number of serious
> > potential flaws in the ALSC approach,
> 
> There is one fundamental flaw, the suggestion of reducing the number
> of At Large directors. This does nothing to solve the difficulties of
> running elections or defining ICANN membership. Those problems as as
> hard for six directors as for nine. All it does is implement an
> unconscionable shift in the board balance.
> 
> > it is a serious and credible proposal by an independent body that
> > appears to have taken seriously its instructions to do a "clean
> > sheet" study and to try to produce an approach that could gain
> > consensus.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > The most interesting part of the Markle survey for these purposes
> > was the fact that not a single person in any of the diverse focus
> > groups surveyed had ever heard of ICANN, and only about half of the
> > "Internet experts" could identify ICANN.
> 
> Interesting indeed.
> 
> > This broad and statistical affirmation of what to many seems
> > intuitively obvious -- that the apparent "public" interest in ICANN
> > is actually only the intense (and loudly expressed) interest of
> > several dozen academics and policy activists
> 
> Touche. However, without them you'd have only corporate players, ICANN
> staff and lawyers, representatives of various governments, and a few
> miscellaneous folk. None of those have any credible claim to represent
> the public interest either. 
> 
> > ... a key question in the debate over public participation in ICANN:
> > how much of the debate today truly reflects the public interest, and
> > how much reflects the personal and institutional agendas of the
> > proponents, ...
> 
> Good question, but no possible answer to it would change the necessity
> that the public interest somehow be represented, or the fact that the
> bylaws require nine elected At Large directors.
> 
> > The NAIS report, ... recognizes that "there is far from a broad
> > consensus about ICANN's proper role, and there is even greater
> > variation of opinion about the best way that public representation
> > can keep ICANN on the right course (or whether there is any role for
> > public representation at all)."
> 
> A reasonable statement.
> 
> > (p.90) But the NAIS authors then assert that the only possible
> > solution to the problem is one that has already been demonstrated to
> > lack consensus support. In a consensus development organization,
> > where it will take a 2/3 vote of the existing Board to adopt any
> > solution, this seems an odd way to advance your objectives.
> 
> Again, this is much like Lynn's alternate roots paper. We don't need
> to have the Board make new policy here. We need to have them implement
> existing policy by getting nine At large directors seated. 
> 
> > The NAIS report documents, in its regional analyses of the previous
> > At Large election, significant executional problems.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > The NAIS report clearly began with an assumed premise -- all
> > interested individuals should have a voice in ICANN.
> 
> Seems a valid premise to me.
> 
> > It then proceeds to the conclusion that the only way this could
> > appropriately happen is to hold direct elections of all interested
> > humans on the globe for half the seats on the ICANN Board. ... How
> > it gets from "a voice" to "elect half the Board, no matter how much
> > it costs or how hard it is to do" is never clearly explained.
> 
> The notion that half the seats on the Board is an appropriate way to
> provide the necessary public voice does not come from NAIS. It comes
> straight out of the bylaws, presumably arrived at through some form of
> consensus/compromise process. 
> 
> As for elections, what alternate mechanisms are there? 
> 
> We might look at the notion of creating a constituency for public
> interest groups like EFF and giving it half the board seats. That
> proposal has some merit, but it is far from clear that it would be
> either workable or equitable.
> 
> Or we could ask national governments or ccTLD administrations to run
> local elections for some sort of assembly or electoral college that
> could then elect Board members. I'm not sure that proposal has any
> merit at all.
> 
> I cannot think of any other mechanisms to propose here that are even
> vaguely plausible. Anyone else?
> 
> So I think we're stuck with some sort of election. The question is how
> to do that.
>