Thanks for this Bill – it is very helpful.
 
- Now we have been given a picture of what I guess the staff believes the 
community wants to do; it is attached.
 
Is there any reason to believe the staff took the views of the community 
into consideration before making this proposal? Perhaps I missed something, 
but I don’t recall any member of the community asking for a framework 
where the real decision making power is vested in a Group where control 
rests with Board and staff members and appointees. Certainly nothing like 
this was proposed in any of the 52 submissions received by ICANN during the 
Enhancing Public Accountability comment period.
 
Rather, I’d suggest the proposed accountability review structure is what 
the staff knows the staff and board want to do. It’s nice to know that Mr. 
Chehade once believed true power belonged in the community. Things seemed to 
have changed. On Monday he’s telling us “any attempt to do anything is 
top-down”. The proposed structure of the “Enhancing Accountability” 
project is more in keeping with Mr. Chehade’s more recent view that his 
previous one.
 
I’m concerned about the role of experts in the schematic. I actually 
prefer the role experts had in the “old” ICANN. Institutions, such as 
Berkman, would be retained to produce a report based upon expertise in a 
particular area. Recommendations would come from a source external to 
ICANN’s internal processes and would be accepted or rejected accordingly. 
In the “new” ICANN experts are part of an internal process with the 
imprimatur of bottom up multi-stakeholderism, but being nothing of the sort.
 
Under the current proposal, the specific experts selected by the B.G.C. will 
greatly define the scope of this project. Dr. Scholte is a fine man and his 
team at Warwick do fine work as political scientists. The thing is ICANN is 
a corporation.  As someone who is increasingly of the view that any true 
accountability mechanism needs to hard wire the Board to the community 
through a change in corporate structure, I’d prefer legal experts and 
experts in corporate, as opposed to global, governance involved. These are 
different fields.
 
Allowing the BGC to select the experts not only allows the Board to 
determine the ideological makeup of the Group, it also strongly limits or 
expands the scope of the inquiry itself. The BGC was the principle 
impediment to our TM50 accountability efforts last year; I don’t have a 
lot of faith that their “experts” will be those likely to propose real 
change to the façade of accountability we now have. Certainly not anything 
that would put their Board positions at risk.
 
To Bill’s three points of inquiry I’d add two others:
 
- What criteria will be used by the BGC in selecting the “experts?” and
- What exactly is the scope of the project? Specifically, does it extend to 
ICANN’s corporate structure?
 
 
Ed
 

-----Original Message-----
From: William Drake <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2014 09:44:48 +0200
Subject: Re: [council] FYI - Recording and Transcript of 4 August 2014 ICANN 
Accountability Leadership Discussion

Hi

Also a good read is the transcript of the SOAC chairs call we did in July 
https://community.icann.org/download/attachments/45744715/SO-AC-SG%20Transcript%20of%20July%202014.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1406040072000&api=v2. 
 

I asked Fadi for a reaction to the joint statement of the entire GNSO that 
was read out in the London public forum arguing that "We need an independent 
accountability structure that holds the ICANN Board, Staff, and various 
stakeholder groups accountable under ICANN’s governing documents, serves 
as an ultimate review of Board/Staff decisions, and through the creation of 
precedent, creates prospective guidance for the board, the staff, and the 
entire community.”  You may recall that when this was read out Fadi was 
reading through a stack of docs and didn’t appear to look up, so I sort of 
innocently asked him what he thought.   

————

Bill: Okay. So I was just wondering, Fadi. I haven’t had a chance to talk 
to you since London, and I was wondering if you have a specific reaction to 
the statement that was made on behalf of all the different parts of the GNSO 
in the Public Forum. Steve provided some feedback, on one of the List Serve 
discussions, but I haven’t heard you engage on the specific ideas that 
people were putting forward, and whether -- how you saw those fitting into 
the process, and maybe that’s just because it's summer and I missed 
something. So, if you could maybe just clue me in on what your thinking is 
about the suggestions that were made, that would be really interesting to 
me.

Fadi: Thank you, Bill. Let me just make sure. You mean the suggestion that I 
just discussed in the last 10 minutes about forming a Cross Community 
Working Group on accountability?

Bill: No. No. The statement that was made by the GNSO leaders was about more 
than forming the Cross Community Working Group, which was about establishing 
mechanisms for accountability, and so on.

Fadi: Well, I didn't get any more detailed on what that is, frankly, since 
the comments at the Public Forum. Could you either now, or could we get--

Bill: I don't have the text right in front of me. Does anybody else have 
that in front of them? I'm not on the computer right now.

Theresa: Bill this is -- I think Steve had responded, and provided a 
response back.

Bill: I know that Steve did, but I was saying, I hadn't heard Fadi address 
the suggestions that were made.

Fadi: No. I have to look at these more closely, Bill, to be frank; before I 
can say something. So I will do that, and I will seek to publish something, 
or send you something at least -- unless others are interested -- as to my 
views on that, that I need to look into more closely.
Theresa, did you want to say something on that? Or, you’d rather you and I 
chat about this, because I haven’t focused on this since.

Theresa: No. Neither had I, and I think that the -- there had been input 
into the topic around accountability and it's also something that’s 
relevant to, you know, the overall accountability work that we are doing, 
but it's a specific kind of proposal. There have been similar specific kinds 
of proposals and topics being raised and also in the comments that were 
received, through the public comment process. In looking at all of those 
kinds of specific inputs and ideas, and suggestions; this is something that 
we haven’t had a chance to look through entirely either.

Fadi: And Bill, just quickly. I mean, I don't want to be evasive, because I 
didn't look at it closely, that’s all it is, but I will tell you that if 
these are proposals on specific ways we can improve our accountability, then 
my answer, I can tell you right now will be, let's get the process going, 
and feed these into the process. I will not -- it's not my role to -- say I 
am for that accountability mechanism, or I'm not for that one. And my role 
(inaudible)--

Bill: The particular point, I guess, that was emphasized as the notion of an 
external or independent accountability structure.

Fadi: I think what we need to do is to create a process. Create a team of 
people that can then start consuming all these ideas. It has to be a 
bottom-up, completely across community groups; that can comment on this. It 
is not my job to comment on this, as your President. My job is to enable the 
process, in a way that you are satisfied and frankly to deal with, in fact, 
the concerns like Elisa and others have brought up, to make sure that this 
is truly bottom-up and a community process. That’s my focus.

Now, do I have an opinion? Yes. But it doesn't matter to be honest, what 
matters is what the community wants to do to make ICANN the shining light on 
the hill. That’s what's important. And I assure you of that. So I will 
look at them nonetheless, and absorb them, and understand them, because it's 
-- I'm also a member of the community, but I can assure you also that I will 
not be commenting on any specific proposals because it's not my role to do 
that, it's the community's role.

-----------

So that was that…he’d not looked at the GNSO’s input closely, but it 
doesn’t matter what his opinion is, what matters is what the community 
wants to do.

Now we have been given a picture of what I guess the staff believes the 
community wants to do; it is attached.  As Robin notes, two tiers: a 
Community Assembly tasked with identifying issues, to which each GNSO SG can 
appoint four reps; and a Community Coordination Group, that will categorize 
and prioritize issues identified by the assembly and then build solutions 
and issue final reports and recs.  This group would be comprised of just one 
participant each from the GNSO and other SOs, a liaison with the IANA CoCo, 
a staff member, a AOC/ATRT expert, a board liaison, and up to seven advisors 
selected by the board.  Those advisors would provide advice and research 
etc. They have in mind folks like Jan Aart Scholte, the professor who gave a 
talk in London.  Observers would be welcome.

This is an interesting architecture.

For starters, I asked three simple questions about it:

*The perceived advantages of this new structure vs. a CCWG

*The viability of having just one rep for the GNSO’s many diverse 
groupings

*The rationale for 7 board-appointed advisors

There was discussion on the last call of some of these points, but no really 
clear answers or consensus that I could detect.  

So now that this model is formally on the table for community consideration, 
it would make sense to provide some organized input.  The registries are 
working on something that raises the above questions and more, NCSG 
hopefully can do the same.

Best,

Bill


On Aug 6, 2014, at 8:19 PM, Robin Gross <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Yes, indeed.  I listened to the call and was disappointed by staff's 
proposal to control the accountability process and defensiveness when called 
on it.   We have been asking staff for information on what it would be 
proposing for a couple months (at GNSO mtg & last "leaders" call) and we 
were just told not to worry about it, that staff was busy compiling the 
input and would dialogue with us soon.  Finally, without seeing the 
"synthesis" of the community input, we get this half-baked proposal from 
Fadi that calls for a process of two-tier accountability groups in which 
board-staff controls the group that "prioritizes" issues and "solutions".  
The 7 "experts" board selects for this group aren't really part of a 
"community" coordination group.  Experts are great, but they should be 
selected by and report to the community (not board-staff) and not pretend 
like they represent stakeholders in the community.  Also, staff's proposal 
doesn't quite say who will be making final decisions regarding the output of 
the groups proposed.   Also, staff should be in this group in an 
informational / support / liaison sort of role, not as an equal participant 
with the community members.

Rather than try to design the whole accountability process internally to 
create a process that board-staff could control the output of, the community 
should have been engaged in the formulation of this proposal, as we've been 
asking every time we get to speak to them.  

It seems like the input staff will now take is minor, around the edges and 
relating to the community assembly / working group -- and NOT the more 
important decisional body it is proposing.  Hopefully we can get some 
significant changes and clarifications to this staff proposal for 
accountability at ICANN before Fadi declares that the community is aligned 
in support of his plan.

Rafik, can you relay my concerns back to staff? (or if there is a mechanism 
for me to do that, I'd be glad to do it myself).  But this accountability 
plan is half-baked and needs more input from the community before it should 
go forward.  

When will staff learn that trust must be earned and these sorts of constant 
shenanigans only hinder confidence and trust in ICANN's legitimacy to 
govern?

Thanks,
Robin


On Aug 6, 2014, at 8:06 AM, Avri Doria wrote:

Interesting reading

avri


-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  [council] FW: FYI - Recording and Transcript of 4 August 2014
ICANN Accountability Leadership Discussion
Date:  Wed, 6 Aug 2014 07:34:10 +0100
From:  Jonathan Robinson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Organization:  Afilias
To:  <[log in to unmask]>



All,



FYI.



Audio not attached (its 16MB). All available at the link below.



Jonathan



*From:*Robert Hoggarth [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
*Sent:* 05 August 2014 18:30
*To:* Theresa Swinehart; David Olive; Byron Holland;
[log in to unmask]; Jonathan Robinson; Louie Lee; Olivier MJ
Crepin-Leblond; Patrik Fältström; Jun Murai; Lars-Johan Liman; Elisa
Cooper; tony holmes; Kristina Rosette; Rafik Dammak; William Drake; Rudi
Vansnick; Michele Neylon :: Blacknight; Drazek, Keith
*Cc:* Susie Johnson; Tina Shelebian; Global Leadership; Duncan Burns;
Samantha Eisner; Bart Boswinkel; Marika Konings; Heidi Ullrich; Steve Sheng
*Subject:* FYI - Recording and Transcript of 4 August 2014 ICANN
Accountability Leadership Discussion



Hi All,



Attached please find the recording of yesterday's discussion along with
the call transcript and the AC Room chat transcript.  All three
documents are now posted on the CEO-SO/AC/SG Leadership Connect page
at https://community.icann.org/display/soaceinputfdback/Event+Calendar .



Best regards,



Rob



<Transcript - Special ICANN Acctblty 
Session_20140804_SOACSG_Fadi.pdf><August 4 2014 Chat Special Session.pdf>