It may be that we are moving toward greater mutual understanding with ALAC. Or maybe we're just confused at a higher level.... Begin forwarded message: > From: William Drake <[log in to unmask]> > Date: October 21, 2009 6:44:34 PM GMT+09:00 > To: At-Large Worldwide <[log in to unmask]> > Cc: "Roberto Gaetano" <[log in to unmask]>, ALAC Working List <[log in to unmask] > > > Bcc: "Drake, William" <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Re: [At-Large] "placeholder" reps not placeholders? > > Hi Dominik > > On Oct 21, 2009, at 1:26 AM, Dominik Filipp wrote: > >> Bill, >> >> I see some points be more clarified for those not sitting inside >> ICANN. If I understand well, the NCUC viewpoint presented by you is >> that the NCUC in the new charter supports democratic election of >> councilor seats in the GNSO council and those elected councilors >> will have obviously voting right exactly as they have it now (the >> NCUC has three seats). The difference between NCUC and some At- >> Large presented positions is only in a way how the councilors will >> be nominated or elected, democratically or hard wired. In other >> words, there is no doubt or discussion but a general consensus >> between the NCUC and At-Large on the basic fact that NCSG >> constituency should have voting councilor seats in the GNSO council >> in any way. >> Am I right? > > Yes, absolutely. > > As I said yesterday in response to Roberto, > >> Agreed. As far as I can tell, everyone sees the 'powers' fairly >> similarly, except that NCUC thinks council seats should be filled >> by elections, SIC thinks the EC should just hash out the allocation >> of seats (which to us sounds like a recipe for trench warfare), and >> some in ALAC feel there should be hard wiring. Hopefully we can >> have a focused discussion on the relative merits of these >> approaches and the trajectories/scenarios they may point to in >> order to move this to another level. > > That's it. We think hard wiring will result in fragmentation within > self-regarding silos, with people treating the NCSG as a mere shell > within which they can pursue their stand alone agendas rather than > feeling an incentive to work with the broader civil society > community. And once you get to more than six constituencies, you'd > have to start monkeying around with formula for division of the > spoils. It is often the case that noncommercial interests and > viewpoints are in a distinct minority in the council as they are in > ICANN more generally, so encouraging fragmentation is just a recipe > for staying powerless, in my view. And as I've said, democratic > elections would probably yield the same sort of distribution of > council seats anyway, unless a constituency is constitutionally > screwed up (e.g. if the consumer group is populated by groups with > corporate members who have entirely different agendas) or just a > vehicle for a few non-geographically diverse folks, or the candidate > is personally impossible to work with, etc. I can't see CS people > who work on say privacy not supporting a good candidate from a solid > constituency who's advocating positions that are broadly appealing > to other CS people. In other civil society networks I participate > in---the iG caucus in the IGF, the CSISAC in OECD, etc---mutual > support and broadly shared visions have been more than sufficient to > bind people together and produce elections to leadership positions > that were non-divisive (without every faction demanding "it's" rep, > although here that'd be more of a priority I guess). I can't see > any reason the same level of trust and collaboration couldn't > prevail in NCSG, other than the generally dysfunctional, trust-free > culture that seems to pervade in ICANN. And the SIC's model is even > worse, they have the executive committee somehow just "working it > out" amongst itself, which will just transfer the fragmentation and > competition into a more intensive and divisive process. > > Whatever one's perspective on the options is, it ought to be the > case that we can have a reasoned, adult conversation about how each > would likely play out, and it's costs and benefits. We did that > internally in NCUC and came to the view that elections were the best > way forward. But we've not had the opportunity for a similar > conversation with the board/SIC, or with ALAC for that matter. > Hopefully we're about to do that with the former now, but re: the > latter, there's no NCUC-ALAC meeting scheduled, so I guess it's a > matter of talking over beers. Whether that'll be sufficient I don't > know, but it's all we can manage, I guess. > > And BTW, as a member of the council, can I just add that it's > slightly puzzling to me that people should be fighting over this > particular "prize." If done properly, it's a ton of work, much of > it on procedural arcana (my bandwidth has unfortunately been largely > absorbed with restructuring hijinks, looking forward to getting past > that eventually and having more to work on the substantive policy > issues). But I guess ICANN should be happy that folks are just > dying to get in there and do it... > > Bill *********************************************************** William J. Drake Senior Associate Centre for International Governance Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva, Switzerland [log in to unmask] www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html ***********************************************************