Dear all,

I think Bill and Milton raised very important questions concerning the
work of the GNSO. I would like to ask two more questions based on what
Milton has already asked.

I read in Ed’s statement about his strong commitment to freedom of
expression. I would like to ask again – after asking this in person, in
a session and in the +1 thread here, because I believe it is important
for us to know: Why did Ed vote, as the only GNSO councilor, against the
addition of a commitment for ICANN to respect human rights to ICANN bylaws?
This is not just about NCSG GNSO councilors, but Ed was only one of ALL
GNSO councilors to vote against the commitment to human rights.

And furthermore, why did Ed not discuss this openly, before the vote, on
the NCSG list. Because I think the concerns Ed had were not shared
widely within the NCSG, except for Heritage and himself.

I find it a problem of accountability how Ed continuously seem to not
want to discuss this openly within our constituency, but does vote on
behalf of it. Here I would like to quote the charter again:

"Each NCSG GNSO Council Representative shall represent, within the GNSO
Council, ICANN and its activities, the goals and priorities of the NCSG
to the best of his/her ability and in accordance with the principle of
consensus building."

and:

"Council Representatives will, however, be expected to understand the
varied positions in the NCSG and to explain to the membership how their
votes are in support of noncommercial interests. NCSG GNSO Councilors
should work with the NCSG‑PC to develop NCSG policy positions. NCSG GNSO
Council Representatives are expected to keep the NCSG membership
informed of policy issues before the GNSO Council, to seek input from
the NCSG membership and to be responsive to member requests for
information on matters pending before the Council."

Last but not least. If you look at the voting history in the GNSO, it is
clear that there is a pattern of Ed structurally making other choices
than the other NCSG GNSO councilors. I do not think this is necessarily
bad, but I do not see any explanation for this reflected in Ed’s statement.

Best,

Niels


On 08/19/2016 12:57 PM, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
> I would like to raise an issue that was completely avoided in our
> discussions yesterday.
> 
>  
> 
> Probably the biggest issue facing the whole ICANN environment right now
> is the IANA transition – the end of US Govt control of the DNS root
> zone, and the completion of ICANN’s movement toward self-governance.
> 
>  
> 
> My sense is that the overwhelming majority of us in this Stakeholder
> Group (NCSG) are in favor of the transition and the accountability
> reforms associated with it. None of us thinks they are perfect, of
> course, but almost all of us believe that we are better off making those
> changes than sticking with the status quo.
> 
>  
> 
> There are a few exceptions. It is clear that the Heritage Foundation,
> one of our (eligible!) member organization, is working very hard in
> Washington to raise obstacles to the transition. It appears to me that
> one of our Council members, Ed Morris, has aligned himself with the
> Heritage folks in opposing completion of the transition at this time,
> though I could be wrong about that.  
> 
>  
> 
> I think it is perfectly acceptable for there to be different views
> within the NCSG. However, it’s also critical for our members to know
> what they are voting for, and to have that debate openly. To my mind, a
> Council member who actively works against the completion of the
> transition has a dramatically different vision of the nature of ICANN
> and its long term future than one who wants to move ahead with the
> accountability reforms and IANA transition.
> 
>  
> 
> Therefore it’s critical for our members to know how all Councilors stand
> on this question.
> 
>  
> 
> So I’d like to see the candidates answer these questions;
> 
>  
> 
> 1.       Do you think that if the U.S. Congress blocks the transition in
> the next 6 weeks that it will be a disaster for the multistakeholder
> model of Internet governance? Why or why not?
> 
>  
> 
> 2.       Are you actively supporting the Heritage Foundation’s (and
> other rightwing groups’) efforts to mobilize Congressional Republicans
> to block the transition?
> 
>  
> 
> 3.       How do you think we as a SG should respond if the transition is
> blocked by the U.S. Congress?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I look forward to discussion of these questions by the candidates.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Dr. Milton L. Mueller
> 
> Professor, School of Public Policy
> 
> Georgia Institute of Technology
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> *From:*NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of
> *William Drake
> *Sent:* Friday, August 19, 2016 6:04 AM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* A Few Take-Aways from Meet the Candidates Call re: Council
> Transparency and Coordination
> 
>  
> 
> Hi
> 
>  
> 
> Yesterday’s call provided a useful opportunity for dialogue on the
> candidates’ views and priorities and also turned out to offer some folks
> a chance to start clearing the air, however uncomfortably, regarding
> issues that arose within our Council contingent the last cycle.  I’d
> like to suggest a couple take-aways in hopes that we can re-set that
> which needs to be and move forward on a firmer footing.  Purely my own
> views, which I guess some folks will disagree with, in which case fine,
> let’s talk it out.
> 
>  
> 
> 1.  Differences of perspective among Councilors are fine but these
> should be openly shared in order to preserve trust. It might make sense
> for the interested parties to find some congenial space in which to
> privately work through past bits of friction that arose re: e.g.
> Marrakech, the GNSO chair selection, and whatever else.  It doesn’t make
> sense to leave misunderstandings unresolved and entrenched as it can
> impact on the effectiveness of the team effort going forward. Hyderabad
> obviously offers F2F options, which are likely to be the most productive
> in coming to resolutions, but it might make sense not to wait entirely
> on this.
> 
>  
> 
> 2. It would be helpful if Councilors could be sure to attend the monthly
> NCSG calls and proactively share their thinking about upcoming Council
> meetings and votes with each other and the wider membership.  In ancient
> times when I was on Council we regarded these as fairly mandatory and
> tried to miss only exceptionally and with notification, but more
> recently participation seems to have be spottier at times (I believe the
> NCSG chair has attendance records?).  Yes we’re all volunteers with day
> jobs and travels so things can happen, but it shouldn’t be the case that
> people miss more than a couple per annual cycle.
> 
>  
> 
> 3. In parallel, it’d be good to have greater open discussion of pending
> votes and positions on the NCSG PC mail list.  I’ve been on that list
> since we set it up in 2011 (first as a Councilor, then as an observer)
> and think it’s under-utilized resource that should work in synch with
> our monthly calls and those of the Council.  Of course, issues should
> not always be sorted purely on an internal PC basis; important policy
> choices at least should also be vetted on ncsg-discuss so the PC is well
> informed by a feel for general member sentiment, even if it’s divided.  
> 
>  
> 
> Either way, between the monthly calls and the PC, we shouldn’t have
> cases where members of the team don’t know until they arrive at a
> Council meeting how their colleagues will vote, or what contacts and
> representations of the group’s shared positions are being made to other
> stakeholder groups, etc.  You can’t have a team effort if people are
> unaware of each others’ doings.
> 
>  
> 
> 4.  Part of the PC’s challenge has always been to ensure effective
> chairing, including tracking of progress on open projects, herding cats,
> etc.  We’ve always appointed Councilors to chair but the results have
> been variable as people are already maxed out.  On yesterday’s call Ed
> made a suggestion that merits consideration: having a non-Council member
> as chair, and allocating one of the NCSG travel slots to this person so
> as to promote their continuous coordination of the process.  It’d be
> interesting to hear views on this.
> 
>  
> 
> 5.  After-meeting reporting to the membership of the issues and votes
> should be routinized.  This doesn’t have involve demanding magnum opus
> treatments, a couple paragraphs one a month should be sufficient and
> doable.  I’d suggested (below) that the six Councilors could rotate the
> responsibility, as was briefly attempted in 2009-2010.  Stephanie
> counter-proposed on the call that reporting be done by non-Councilors,
> in part as a way of on-boarding ‘new blood’ and helping to prepare folks
> to stand for Council in a future election.  This could work too,
> although it may involve some extra coordination to ensure every
> Councilors’ votes and views are reflected to taste.  Worth a try…
> 
>  
> 
> If we could do at least some of this, I think it’d increase our team’s
> solidarity and our general members’ understanding of what their
> representative are up to, what’s in play in the GNSO, and what the
> opportunities for engaging in working groups and such are.  It’d also
> make our votes in elections more well informed.
> 
>  
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
>  
> 
> Bill
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>     On Aug 17, 2016, at 10:39, William Drake <[log in to unmask]
>     <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> 
>      
> 
>     Hi
> 
>      
> 
>         On Aug 16, 2016, at 23:38, Robin Gross <[log in to unmask]
>         <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> 
>          
> 
>         Agreed.  It is important for members to become more acquainted
>         with our representatives and resumes are extremely helpful for that.
> 
>      
> 
>     Sharing candidates’ resumes is not a bad idea.  But I’d like to
>     suggest we go beyond this.  Two issue we might want to consider on
>     tomorrow’s call:
> 
>      
> 
>     When I joined Council in 2009, we discussed the need for better
>     reporting to members as to what their reps were actually doing in
>     Council.  We launched an attempt to deal with this by having
>     Councilors take turns doing brief reports about Council meetings.
>     Alas it didn’t get far, after a couple times the sense of urgency
>     faded, people told themselves “well, members can always look at the
>     Council archive to see what’s happening," and the effort drifted
>     off.  But of course it’s actually not easy for a member to dive
>     through the Council archive and try to reconstruct what’s happening,
>     and it’s not so hard to compose a one or two paragraph summary of a
>     monthly Council meeting indicating how our reps voted on which
>     issues, especially if the workload is rotated among six Councilors,
>     making it just a few times per year each.  So while it’s a bit
>     uncomfortable suggesting work to be done by others, I’d like to put
>     this idea back on the table ahead of our Meet the Candidates call
>     tomorrow.  It need not be an one onerous thing, and after all we
>     exist to participate in the GNSO, so surely we should be able to
>     know how our reps are representing us in the GNSO.  Especially when
>     we’re being asked to vote them into ‘office’ (for incumbents) on the
>     basis of past performance.
> 
>      
> 
>     More generally, we have long debated the matter of coordination
>     among Council reps.  Unlike most if not all other parts of the GNSO,
>     NCSG by charter doesn’t normally do ‘directed voting,’ where the
>     members are bound to vote in conformity with a rough consensus
>     position.  We have a charter provision to do this in exceptional
>     cases, but I don’t recall it ever being invoked.  We’ve always been
>     content to operate on the notion that the Councilor does what s/he
>     thinks is in the best interest of civil society @ GNSO, and if
>     members don’t approve of anyone’s action they can vote them out in
>     the next cycle.  But as that has not really happened, it’s sort of a
>     meaningless check and balance.  And this is not without consequence,
>     as we’ve sometimes had internal differences within our contingent
>     that have arguably undermined our effectiveness and credibility in
>     the eyes of the community and staff, and can even allow our various
>     business stakeholder group counterparts to exploit the differences
>     in order to push through what they want in opposition to our common
>     baseline views.  So at a minimum, we need to do better somehow at
>     team coordination and make sure all our Councilors know what each
>     other is doing and why and so there’s no real time surprises,
>     especially during meetings with high stakes votes.
> 
>      
> 
>     Thoughts?
> 
>      
> 
>     Best
> 
>      
> 
>     Bill
> 
>  
> 

-- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
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