Hello, all
Important news about the GNSO Improvements. First, we have
no official notice yet but the Board has voted to delay the full implementation
of the Improvements by 3-4 months. This is supposed to have happened at the
Sept 30 meeting, but we have no description of what they decided yet so cannot
provide details.
This has implications for our GNSO Council seat elections.
It would mean that there would be 2 open Council positions instead of 5,
although one ICANN staff has suggested that we go ahead and elect all 5 and
keep them “in reserve” (don’t shoot the messenger, I am just
relaying what I know).
More important, we need to start thinking about the new structure
for the Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG). Below is a sketch of what I
think would work. Please let us know what you think.
NCSG structure sketch
Membership
Eligibility criteria same as before, except we allow individuals
according to current provisional regime
Individuals and representatives of organizations join NCSG directly
Social networking site for interactions and records
NCUC discuss list retained (but renamed) as NCSG discuss
list
3 categories of membership:
Large organization – 4 votes
Small organization – 2 votes
Individuals – 1 vote
No membership dues, but renewal required bi-annually
Chair and GNSO Council reps elected by NCSG members
Officers
Chair – same duties as NCUC chair
6 GNSO Council representatives elected by NCSG
Executive Committee (EC)
Consists of Chair, 1 delegate from each constituency, Council
representatives
Constituencies represented by their own chair/delegate
Constituencies
Constituencies are self-defined groups organized around some
distinctive policy perspective (e.g. consumer protection, privacy); shared
identity (e.g., region or country of origin, gender, language group); a type of
organization (e.g., research networks, philanthropic foundations) or any other
grouping principle that might affect its stance on gtld policy.
Each constituency sets its own eligibility criteria
Constituencies have a right to:
x Place
one rep on the executive committee
x Delegate
members to working groups
x Issue
statements on PDPs which are included in the official NCSG response, but marked
as constituency positions, not necessarily the position of NCSG as a whole
To be recognized as a constituency a group must be supported by at
least 5 people who are already NCSG members, appoint an organizer (chair) and
submit a charter. Steps:
1) A
prospective constituency organizer issues a notification of intent to form a
constituency to the entire NCSG via its email list
2) When
5 or more NCSG members volunteer to join the NCSG on the public list it becomes
eligible to schedule a meeting (which can be either in person or online)
3) The
eligible constituency holds a meeting(s) to draft a charter. The charter
defines its grouping principle, eligibility criteria, and procedures. The
meetings also designate a constituency chair, and other officers if so desired.
4) The
charter is submitted to the NCSG EC for ratification. Ratification is based
exclusively on due diligence whether there are really at least 5 members,
whether the constituency’s eligibility rules or procedures contravene
NCSG charter in some way
Current members of NCUC are automatically made members of NCSG, but
NCUC dissolves as a constituency once this proposal is adopted.
NCSG members can join any constituency, provided that they meet the
constituency’s own eligibility criteria.
Should we allow constituencies to exclude based on
criteria? I propose yes – otherwise constituencies are meaningless
Should we allow members to join more than one
constituency? I propose yes, as long as voting for council seats and chair is
NCSG-wide.
Constituencies keep track of their own membership, but members should
reflect their status on the official NCSG social network site. Status is
reviewed by the EC bi-annually to see if they still exceed the 5-member
threshold.