On 12 Jul 2014, at 5:45 pm, Milton L Mueller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

The coordination group will meet in London next week for its first f2f meeting. We've also had an initial conference call.

I want to solicit your opinion on two immediate issues we will face.

1. GAC representation.
Governments have been allotted 2 seats on the coordination group (CG). They want 5, one for each world region.
ICANN has indicated that it will follow the CG's lead on whether to add additional seats or keep it at two.
I have an opinion on this, but want to see what others think.
My opinion is that the GAC should not be allowed to add more members; the basic fallacy they are making is to see the CG as a voting body rather than seeing its members as liaisons to the specific communities represented. 2 seats allows them to keep tabs on what the CG is doing and carry that info back to the GAC and the GAC's reaction back to the CG. With 5 seats you are not only inflating the size of an already large committee but inflating the representation of a stakeholder group that, according to the NTIA mandate, is not supposed to play a controlling role in the outcome. Other perspectives welcome.

While in general I take the point that the GAC may have the wrong idea about its function, I do not feel that 5 or 2 out of a group that is already too large is something that is crucial to make a stand over.

If they are to act as representatives of 'the GAC', then I would oppose the increase - but it would be my hope that they are instead acting as liaisons to the governments of regions, and trying to communicate the many and varied views of government rather than GAC consensus. If that is indeed their intention - that they are asking for more representation because they intend to liaise in a way that goes beyond normal GAC processes, and directly represents a broad range of govt inputs into the process rather than a single GAC position, which I think would be healthy - then I think asking for 5 is not outrageous.

I agree that any suggestion that the CG should be a voting body should be resisted.

2. Transition scope and expectations about work in the communities.
Our working agenda says: "It would be good to clarify the CG's understanding of the scope of the work of the transition, what the community processes need to produce, and where/how areas of overlap will be handled." Advice on how we want this scope issue to be handled is welcome. We obviously want to avoid making "scope" a code word for eliminating certain outcomes or end states that certain forces don't want to happen.

	I would very much agree that scope should not be used to eliminate certain outcomes or end states.
	The idea of a 'coordinating group' makes it fairly clear that where there are issues with scope, the coordinating group should have some latitude to find a solution to problems caused by scope overlap, process restrictions, etc. The CG should not be determining the 'scope of the work of the transition' or 'what the community processes need to produce', but coordinating community input on those.

	David