So as we move into drafting a new charter for the NCSG,
these are the principles that the Board has developed to guide us.
Good news is that the reform is moving fast and will be
largely in our hands, not staff’s or the full Council’s.
Another piece of good news is that our efforts to start
admitting individuals and to start preparing for the transition we are way
ahead of the other constituencies.
Critical Stakeholder Group Principles
In authorizing a bicameral voting structure for the restructured GNSO
Council, the ICANN Board has created a significant role for four stakeholder
groups (commercial, non-commercial, registry and registrar) in the management
and operations of the Council. Implementation of the new Council structure by
January 2009, as directed by the Board, will require significant coordination
within individual stakeholder groups, including future members of those groups
as possible, to work to adapt their operations and nomination and election
processes to the composition of the voting house structures authorized by the
Board.
To assist the stakeholder groups in coordinating their efforts to
effectuate a successful transition to the new GNSO Council structure, set forth
below are a number of principles that should be taken into account in
developing proposals for seating Stakeholder Group representatives on the
Council. The principles come directly from various sections of the February
2008 Board Governance Committee GNSO Improvements Report that was adopted by
the ICANN Board on 25 June 2008 in Paris, France.
The principles included were selected because it is critical that they
be applied in the development of implementation steps to seat the new GNSO
Council and are not meant to widely include passages referencing new
constituency principals and processes.
Principles
2. The stakeholder groups may function
only as a “caucus,” bringing together like-minded stakeholders to
elect representatives to the Council who can represent them. (Report at p. 33)
3. This structure would be fluid enough
to accommodate new constituencies or the formation of new interest groups.
(Report at p. 33)
8. The six constituencies that are
currently recognized as representative of a group of GNSO stakeholders in the
ICANN Bylaws thus need not be the same constituencies that will be recognized
in the future. Indeed, there is no set number of constituencies that should be
represented in the GNSO, and the constituencies created in the late
1990’s do not need to remain static. (Report at p. 40)
9. The effective functioning of the
GNSO Council relies significantly on the existence of vibrant and active
stakeholders. To maintain a healthy policy development process that is
respected by all stakeholders, it is critical that ICANN work to increase
participation in constituencies and any other entities that want to be part of
a stakeholder group, so that policy discussions can take place with all
relevant views contributing to the debate. (Report at p. 42)
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