On 15/08/2014 10:01 AM, Avri Doria wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> I have a few bullets that pull me to mostly different conclusions.
>
> - deferring to me in such matters is never the right thing to do.  In
> social circumstances it is a lovely thing, but on a list, never.
>
> - i tend to think of Staff as stakeholders too, though of a very
> different sort.  When the multistakeholder definition says 'everyone',
> forme, it has to mean them too.

I disagree strongly. As individuals or anything else they can chime in 
in the relevant SG. But just like a public office clerk also is a 
citizen, she does not vote as public office clerk. We may not be able to 
prevent her from informally participating in democratic policy-making as 
clerk, but we should definitely resist giving clerks representational 
powers.

> Certainly their role as staff constrains their behaviors.  But sitting
> at the table to discuss accountability, especially when one of the big
> issues is staff whistleblowing and the safety with which they can do so,
> it seems to me they should have a seat.

That is a different issue, one in which staff's needs need to be 
listened to, but the existence of this issue does not transform staff 
into stakeholders.


>
> - this is broader than the inside ICANN community.  The accountability
> is accountability to the global multuistakeholder community by ICANN on
> issues of critical Internet resources.
> I see these experts as being asked to give that viewpoint.
> Now I fear so-called experts, they can be good or oh so
> awful.  I think removing the choice of the experts  from the Board/Staff
> political decision makers and giving it to the group of the 'wise' - the
> Public Experts Group (PEG)*, is real and can be made meaningful.  I
> think we should save our voice for our reaction to the choosing of the
> Public Experts Group.  Any expert picked for the PEG or coordination
> group should be ready for the approval or approbation of the larger
> Internet governance community - both inside and outside of ICANN - a
> place that can seem very cruel at times.
>
> - the coordination group does not make decisions, it builds "solution
> requirements for issues with input from the Cross Community Group"  This
> is still ICANN where any solution they propose is subjected to full
> public comment and Board approval. It is good to see they made this
> explicit.  This is more like an advisory organization, seeming somewhat
> a hybird between an advisory committee and a supporting organization -
> time will tell.  It is a lot like the AOC in some aspects, except that
> it is NOT the Board Chair, CEO and GAC chair deciding who is on the
> entire team.  And it has a feeder mechanism for continuous community
> input.  I think they did well on building a basic organizational
> structure for this effort.

Thanks for clarifying this. I see the merits of what has been brought 
forward, though I'm still trying to wrap my head around whether I like 
it or not. Would it be really difficult to have the SGs select the wise 
folks? This seems, to me, to be the relevant question here.


Nicolas


>
> - the community group is the place to be.  I agree completely with
>
>
>> 3. Please note: “All stakeholders that wish to participate in the
>> Cross Community Group may indicate their involvement by submitting
>> their names to [log in to unmask]” It would be
>> great to get as many members as we can on the Group. The sign on
>> process has begun.
>>
> I have sent my signup request.
>
> On the other recommendations, if you really think you can change things
> for the better or if saying I told you so is important, by all means
> write the strong letter.
>
> I plan to focus on steps going forward. And of course I will comment on
> any letter people come up with.
>
> avri
>
> * who incidentally had better pass an ICANN giggle test - being
> announced will be a very painful experience for them if the community
> thinks they are crap
>
> On 15-Aug-14 09:00, Edward Morris wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>> While certainly willing to defer to those, like Avri, with more
>> experience as to what actually is possible within the ICANN universe,
>> I do feel compelled to note that the revised accountability plan, to
>> use a highly technical term, stinks. As in stinks big time. Despite
>> slight modifications, it is still a process dominated by the same
>> staff and Board that to date have repeatedly resisted all attempts at
>> true accountability and transparency.
>>
>> To wit:
>>
>> 1. Despite community objection, we still have an ICANN staff member
>> as a full participating member of the Coordination Group. The
>> precedent this sets is untenable.  Once staff begins participating in
>> the decision-making process they cease to be neutral facilitators of
>> the process. Not only does this turn bottom up multi-stakeholderism
>> on its head, it presents practical problems in terms of trust: if
>> staff are involved in debating and making decisions, how can they be
>> relied upon to neutrally manage the process?
>>
>> 2. The role of experts is essentially unchanged, despite widespread
>> community opposition. They are not merely advisory; they are full
>> participants in the process.
>>
>> ICANN notes, “Some stakeholders called for stakeholder selection of
>> the advisors, and suggested that ICANN involvement in this process is
>> not appropriate.  Others called for coordination between ICANN and
>> stakeholders in the selection of advisors”.  ICANN responds by doing
>> neither.
>>
>> Instead it creates a Public Experts Group (PEG), selected by staff,
>> which will then select the expert members of the Coordination Group.
>> How this is seen as being responsive to community concerns baffles
>> me. Staff selects the experts who select the experts who participate
>> as full members of the Coordination Group. There is no mechanism for
>> ANY community involvement whatsoever in the selection of experts.
>> We’re not entitled to even make a mere suggestion.
>>
>> Staff justifies the inclusion of experts as participants, rather
>> than advisors, by saying ICANN is responding to outside concern. The
>> world is watching and external advice is needed to meet these
>> concerns.
>>
>> Yet the Thune/ Rubio letter Mr. Chehade often refers to when citing
>> outside pressure specifically calls for “additional oversight tools”
>> to be given to the “multistakeholder community”. Perhaps if we say
>> “pretty please” the experts selected by experts selected by staff in
>> collaboration with staff selected by staff and a Board member
>> selected by the Board will give the “multistakeholder community”
>> “additional oversight tools” to monitor the Board and staff. Perhaps
>> the moon is made of blue cheese. Anything is possible, I suppose.
>> Real oversight, as opposed to a facade of oversight, is presumably
>> not in the immediate self interest of staff or Board.
>>
>> An additional concern is the limitation in scope of the
>> qualifications of the Public Experts Group. The PEG members are
>> required to have “strong backgrounds in academia, governmental
>> relations, global insight, and the AoC”. Two areas of concern:
>>
>> 1. ICANN is a corporation. It is not a government, it is not (yet,
>> at least) an international organization, it is a California public
>> benefits corporation. We are trying to create accountability and
>> transparency mechanisms for a private corporation, yet staff  omits
>> corporate governance as a vital area in which expert advice is
>> needed. By controlling the scope of competence of the experts, staff
>> is dictating the scope of inquiry of the entire project. We need to
>> be conscious of this and react accordingly as the process moves on.
>>
>> 2. It appears that rather than set criteria and then find the
>> experts for the PEG, ICANN has already selected the experts to be
>> included in the group. Four background areas (is there any such thing
>> as an expert on the AoC?), four expert slots. If this is the
>> situation, and it may very well not be although I suspect it is, the
>> process certainly does not comply with any sort of best practices for
>> governance that I know of.
>>
>> Suggested Action Plan
>>
>> 1. While agreeing with Avri that we need to begin sorting how we are
>> going to work within the proposed structure, I also believe we need
>> to issue a strong statement in opposition to the plan as currently
>> proposed. Staff modifications to the initial model are simply not
>> sufficient to bless this proposal with our approval.
>>
>> Although such a statement might not create any change in the process
>> going forward, should the outcome be as bad as we may fear I’d like
>> to be able to point to our ongoing opposition to the rigged structure
>> when criticizing the outcome. Complete silence to the modified model
>> at this point might be construed as approval. We could then, at a
>> later stage, be accused of buying into the structure at the start and
>> only criticizing the modified model later when we didn’t like the
>> policy outputs. I’d like to avoid that.
>>
>> 2. Although staff has not tasked our SG with recommending expert
>> members of the Coordination Group I’d suggest we do so any way. The
>> NCSG is the most diverse community within ICANN; our networks are
>> vast. Let’s plug into them and be proactive. Once we have a list of a
>> few names of folks we’d like to see involved on the Coordination
>> Group we can use it as follows:
>>
>> a.  We can send the list to the selected members of the PEG and ask
>> that the individuals listed be given full consideration by the PEG
>> for inclusion in the Coordination Group;
>>
>> b. There is a provision in the modified plan by where “the Cross
>> Community Group may provide suggestions on external experts they
>> feel would be helpful to the accountability effort”. By having
>> already considered the situation we'll be prepared to offer names of
>> experts when required.
>>
>> In the hope of stimulating further recommendations, I’ll start by
>> suggesting that Dr. Deirdre Ahern of Trinity College Dublin would be
>> an excellent selection for the Coordination Group. In addition to be
>> an acknowledged expert in board governance, one of the many areas of
>> expertise identified by ICANN as being needed on the Coordination
>> Group, Dr. Ahern also has a subspecialty in Internet Law and, in
>> fact, teaches the I-Law course at Trinity, Ireland’s most prestigious
>> university. You can read more about Dr. Ahern here:
>> https://www.tcd.ie/Law/deirdreahern/index.php. I hope you agree with
>> me that she’d be a qualified exceptional choice for the Coordination
>> Group. Equally, I hope others have people in mind that they would
>> like to suggest for either the Coordination Group or for other as yet
>> defined consultative processes.
>>
>> 3. Please note: “All stakeholders that wish to participate in the
>> Cross Community Group may indicate their involvement by submitting
>> their names to [log in to unmask]
>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>.” It would be great to
>> get as many members as we can on the Group. The sign on process has
>> begun.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Ed
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] To:
>> [log in to unmask] Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 06:41:01 +0000
>> Subject: Re: Accountability plan
>>
>> Hi all Mho is that the more we are evolving the more we will enter in
>> the secret of gods. Really intersting ! Cheers ! -Olévié-
>>
>> Rafik Dammak <[log in to unmask]
>> <mailto:rafik.dammak%40GMAIL.COM>> a écrit :
>>
>>> Hi Avri,
>>>
>>> Thanks, it is definitely an interesting reading :) and as NCSG we
>> have to
>>> make some actions and that is coming soon.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Rafik
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-08-15 12:24 GMT+09:00 Avri Doria <[log in to unmask]
>> <mailto:avri%40acm.org>>:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Well the final plan for the Accountability process seems to be
>>>> out.
>>>>
>>>> https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-08-14-en
>>>>
>>>> I think our next step is to start figuring out how we are going
>> to work
>>>> with it.  We have done whatever we could to adjust it based on
>>>> NCSG principles, but at this point, I think that phase of the
>>>> process is pretty much over.  I believe that the effect of the
>>>> various GNSO SG letters was positive as I think the process is
>>>> better now than the earlier version we saw.  I think there is
>>>> stuff I could quibble
>> about,
>>>> but structurally the plan makes sense to me, and I think it can
>> work as
>>>> a way for the community, both inside ICANN and the global
>> community, to
>>>> do something to improve ICANN accountability.  I think it could
>> achieve
>>>> a lot given the dependency of the transition process on the
>>>> accountability process.
>>>>
>>>> It looks like that at least for the next year, it is going to
>> involve a
>>>> whole bunch of work and steady attention from the SG.  Between
>> this and
>>>> the transition, we will be busy.  Not to mention the regular
>> progression
>>>> of GNSO issues that are already important and hard enough.
>>>>
>>>> Speaking of the IANA Transtion and the  CWG charter, I have not
>> seen the
>>>> final version yet, but I do believe that the ICG language was
>>>> put
>> in as
>>>> recommended by Milton.  A few of us (indeed I was not a lone
>> voice) also
>>>> argued to keep the last line we had indicating that the IANA
>>>> accountability issues were in scope for the CWG on IANA
>>>> transition. I think we got that in, but I am not positive yet.  I
>>>> am hoping the
>> SOACs
>>>> approve the charter quickly as once that happens the group can
>> start to
>>>> work.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> avri
>>>>