The Role of Experts in ICANN deliberations:

This issue is churning away in the background of various discussions so 
here is a contribution to thinking about how to handle it.

There are two areas of concern with regard to the role of experts in 
ICANN deliberations. The first, of course, is the selection of 
appropriate experts for the issue/task at hand. As everyone involved in 
policy and project implementation knows, knowledge and expertise only 
have meaning in context, and excellent credentials applied to the wrong 
task produces a double risk. The advice will be out of context, and 
there is the risk of legitimating the advice based on the credentials of 
the expert, rather than on the suitability of the advice to the context. 
In fact, this is always a problem, no matter how the expert selection 
process is undertaken and by whom.

This leads to the second concern, and one that is present in ICANN 
deliberations. That is once the expert opinion is tabled it is given 
undue weight in decision making independent of its actual relevance and 
strengths. This has happened with some of the content of recently 
retained ICANN expert panels, in particular the one on enhanced 
multistakeholder engagement.

There is a long standing tried and true protection against the risks 
associated with both of these concerns. The British call it the Green 
Paper process, and it would be simple to incorporate it into ICANN's use 
of retained expertise to assist in decision making. It is very much like 
the terms of reference currently being used for the IANA stewardship 
coordination group. An agreed upon simple statement could be a mandatory 
part of the charter, or terms of reference, for any expert group 
convened within ICANN. Something like:

*This expert group will identify issues and options, and may suggest 
recommendations for policy or implementation, to be used as input into 
the subsequent multistakeholder dialogue and multistakeholder 
recommendations for action. *

While there will still be differences of opinion as to who should be 
retained as experts, such a process reduces the critical role of expert 
selection in the ultimate policy decisions, and allows the stakeholder 
groups to insure that subsequent use of advice is based on the relevance 
of the advice to the issues at hand. It focuses on usable outputs and 
not expert credentials, and minimizes the extent to which decision 
making can selectively pick elements of the advice based on self-interest.

Sam L.