Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
I am not absolutely sure, but I'm reasonably confident the
best person to send comments to is Marco Lorenzoni -
Marco.Lorenzoni[at]icann.org.
He's Director for Organisational Reviews.
I copy Marco in this message, but I think that the questions asked are
really for the Chair of the SIC to answer.
I am sure that we are going to have a very interesting debate in Seoul about
this, but I can anticipate a few comments.
First of all, the interaction with the community.
The process that the Board has chosen is modeled on the NomCom, although
simplified. This means that the first step has been a call for candidature,
issued, if I remember correctly (staff might correct me and/or give exact
references), in the beginning of August, with deadline the end of August.
Public discussion of the candidatures was explicitely excluded, in the same
way as you do not have public discussion of the candidatures presented to
the NomCom.
It is extremely unfortunate that most of ALAC has not paid attention to the
call, that I am sure was posted. Some parts of ALAC were well aware (I
remember having had a discussion on the EURALO list, for instance), and I
was assuming that all of ALAC was. The reason why I state that it was an
unfortunate fact, is that we have received only 14 candidatures. I believe
that at one point in time staff will publish the summary, including
percentages by geographic region and gender.
Second question, how the selection was done.
The whole purpose of the exercise was to appoint people who were part of the
non-commercial community that was not sufficiently represented. That
included, but was not limited to, geographic regions not represented by the
other NCSG councillors, constituencies to be formed, gender equality.
For geographic regions, we noted that the current NCUC councillors are Bill
Drake (NA, although with EU domicile), Mary Wong (AP, although with NA
domicile) and Carlos Souza (LAC). The obvious absence was Africa. We
considered, therefore, to have an African appointed as a priority.
For constituencies, we noted thyat the a Consumer Constituency had a
petition under approval process, that the technical research and academia
has a theoretical representation (one representative appointed yearly to the
NomCom) but no practical presence in the GNSO, that philantropic
institutions have a growing importance, that non-commercial registrants are
also not represented. But here comes the problem. With the narrow set of
candidates it has been all but easy to cover these needs.
Third question, about the individuals chosen.
I have to admit that I do not like to make public statements about the
quality of the candidates when I am part of the panel who makes the
decision, and even less I would like to get into discussions on possible
alternatives and why the SIC has ended up in not considering them.
However, there are a couple of things I can say.
About Rosemary Sinclair, she is the president of the INTUG, which is an
international umbrella organization who has several national consumer
organizations as members. The fact that ATUG, her employer, is a consumer
organization mainly oriented to business users has been considered, but on
the other hand it has also been considered that the organizations in INTUG
are covering a wide spectrum, geographically and in terms of interest
groups. There are two points to be taken into account: the first is that if
the objective is ultimately to build a consumer constituency, the president
of the largest consumer organization worldwide could be a good starting
point, and the second is the commitment Rosemary has made to work in the
interest of the non-commercial users worldwide during her tenure at the Name
Council. Noting also that we have checked the references, I have personally
no doubt that she will be very useful for the non-commercial user community
and instrumental in outreaching to different consumer organizations that are
now not involved in ICANN.
About Debra Hughes, I confess that I am extremely surprised by the reaction.
The International Red Cross has been one of the most frequently quoted
examples of the type of organization that we hoped to get involved in the
NonCommercial User community. Just few weeks ago in a letter to some Board
members Robin Gross pointed out the fact that now the Red Cross has joined
the NCUC. I find most surprisingly to have objections about having a
representative of this reputable international organization, twice Nobel
laureate, integrate the Name Council. While I do agree that she has an IP
lawyer backgroung, I would like to stress that she is not in the Council as
an individual, but as a representative of her organization. I wonder how
many Registries and Registrars are represented in their constituencies or
stakeholder groups by lawyers. And even ALAC itself has appointed years ago
a representative to the NomCom who was working for a Registrar. So what?
Maybe it would have been less contentious to have somebody with a different
profile, but I personally feel happy that, given the exceptionally small
number of applicants, we have found people who are well above the minimum
requirements for the job.
I would also like to add a last consideration.
People have different interests, wear different hats, what is important is
how they engage for accomplishing the mission given to them. There are a few
tasks for these "special" NCSG Cousellors. One of them is outreach, in
particular in their community. Another one is the ability to work together
with people who have different views, as this will be the case in the
Council, but even in the House or the Stakeholder Group. Staff has done the
ground work, and prepared tables; the SIC has discussed for several days,
online, by phone and in person, and has formulated a recommendation; the
Board has discussed the recommendation and approved it during a
teleconference. There has been a lot of work put in, in good faith, by a lot
of people for getting this accomplished on time to have the GNSO Council
seated in Seoul, which will mark a historic change in the GNSO.
What I will ask now is to give the chosen people, who have little or no
previous experience of ICANN, the benefit of the doubt, and judge them by
their actions in few months from now, and not prejudge them based on line
items on their CVs. The Council has to work together, the NCSG has to work
together, to start pointing fingers a few hours after the appointment is not
a good way to start. Watch their actions closely, criticize them bitterly
(but politely) if they take positions that in your opinion are against the
non-commercial community, but please wait until they act for passing
judgement.
Best regards,
Roberto