Hi, While certainly willing to defer to those, like Avri, with more experience as to what actually is possible within the ICANN universe, I do feel compelled to note that the revised accountability plan, to use a highly technical term, stinks. As in stinks big time. Despite slight modifications, it is still a process dominated by the same staff and Board that to date have repeatedly resisted all attempts at true accountability and transparency. To wit: 1. Despite community objection, we still have an ICANN staff member as a full participating member of the Coordination Group. The precedent this sets is untenable. Once staff begins participating in the decision-making process they cease to be neutral facilitators of the process. Not only does this turn bottom up multi-stakeholderism on its head, it presents practical problems in terms of trust: if staff are involved in debating and making decisions, how can they be relied upon to neutrally manage the process? 2. The role of experts is essentially unchanged, despite widespread community opposition. They are not merely advisory; they are full participants in the process. ICANN notes, “Some stakeholders called for stakeholder selection of the advisors, and suggested that ICANN involvement in this process is not appropriate. Others called for coordination between ICANN and stakeholders in the selection of advisors”. ICANN responds by doing neither. Instead it creates a Public Experts Group (PEG), selected by staff, which will then select the expert members of the Coordination Group. How this is seen as being responsive to community concerns baffles me. Staff selects the experts who select the experts who participate as full members of the Coordination Group. There is no mechanism for ANY community involvement whatsoever in the selection of experts. We’re not entitled to even make a mere suggestion. Staff justifies the inclusion of experts as participants, rather than advisors, by saying ICANN is responding to outside concern. The world is watching and external advice is needed to meet these concerns. Yet the Thune/ Rubio letter Mr. Chehade often refers to when citing outside pressure specifically calls for “additional oversight tools” to be given to the “multistakeholder community”. Perhaps if we say “pretty please” the experts selected by experts selected by staff in collaboration with staff selected by staff and a Board member selected by the Board will give the “multistakeholder community” “additional oversight tools” to monitor the Board and staff. Perhaps the moon is made of blue cheese. Anything is possible, I suppose. Real oversight, as opposed to a facade of oversight, is presumably not in the immediate self interest of staff or Board. An additional concern is the limitation in scope of the qualifications of the Public Experts Group. The PEG members are required to have “strong backgrounds in academia, governmental relations, global insight, and the AoC”. Two areas of concern: 1. ICANN is a corporation. It is not a government, it is not (yet, at least) an international organization, it is a California public benefits corporation. We are trying to create accountability and transparency mechanisms for a private corporation, yet staff omits corporate governance as a vital area in which expert advice is needed. By controlling the scope of competence of the experts, staff is dictating the scope of inquiry of the entire project. We need to be conscious of this and react accordingly as the process moves on. 2. It appears that rather than set criteria and then find the experts for the PEG, ICANN has already selected the experts to be included in the group. Four background areas (is there any such thing as an expert on the AoC?), four expert slots. If this is the situation, and it may very well not be although I suspect it is, the process certainly does not comply with any sort of best practices for governance that I know of. Suggested Action Plan 1. While agreeing with Avri that we need to begin sorting how we are going to work within the proposed structure, I also believe we need to issue a strong statement in opposition to the plan as currently proposed. Staff modifications to the initial model are simply not sufficient to bless this proposal with our approval. Although such a statement might not create any change in the process going forward, should the outcome be as bad as we may fear I’d like to be able to point to our ongoing opposition to the rigged structure when criticizing the outcome. Complete silence to the modified model at this point might be construed as approval. We could then, at a later stage, be accused of buying into the structure at the start and only criticizing the modified model later when we didn’t like the policy outputs. I’d like to avoid that. 2. Although staff has not tasked our SG with recommending expert members of the Coordination Group I’d suggest we do so any way. The NCSG is the most diverse community within ICANN; our networks are vast. Let’s plug into them and be proactive. Once we have a list of a few names of folks we’d like to see involved on the Coordination Group we can use it as follows: a. We can send the list to the selected members of the PEG and ask that the individuals listed be given full consideration by the PEG for inclusion in the Coordination Group; b. There is a provision in the modified plan by where “the Cross Community Group may provide suggestions on external experts they feel would be helpful to the accountability effort”. By having already considered the situation we'll be prepared to offer names of experts when required. In the hope of stimulating further recommendations, I’ll start by suggesting that Dr. Deirdre Ahern of Trinity College Dublin would be an excellent selection for the Coordination Group. In addition to be an acknowledged expert in board governance, one of the many areas of expertise identified by ICANN as being needed on the Coordination Group, Dr. Ahern also has a subspecialty in Internet Law and, in fact, teaches the I-Law course at Trinity, Ireland’s most prestigious university. You can read more about Dr. Ahern here: https://www.tcd.ie/Law/deirdreahern/index.php. I hope you agree with me that she’d be a qualified exceptional choice for the Coordination Group. Equally, I hope others have people in mind that they would like to suggest for either the Coordination Group or for other as yet defined consultative processes. 3. Please note: “All stakeholders that wish to participate in the Cross Community Group may indicate their involvement by submitting their names to [log in to unmask]” It would be great to get as many members as we can on the Group. The sign on process has begun. Thanks, Ed -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 06:41:01 +0000 Subject: Re: Accountability plan Hi all Mho is that the more we are evolving the more we will enter in the secret of gods. Really intersting ! Cheers ! -Olévié- Rafik Dammak <[log in to unmask]> a écrit : >Hi Avri, > >Thanks, it is definitely an interesting reading :) and as NCSG we have to >make some actions and that is coming soon. > >Best, > >Rafik > > >2014-08-15 12:24 GMT+09:00 Avri Doria <[log in to unmask]>: > >> Hi, >> >> Well the final plan for the Accountability process seems to be out. >> >> https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-08-14-en >> >> I think our next step is to start figuring out how we are going to work >> with it. We have done whatever we could to adjust it based on NCSG >> principles, but at this point, I think that phase of the process is >> pretty much over. I believe that the effect of the various GNSO SG >> letters was positive as I think the process is better now than the >> earlier version we saw. I think there is stuff I could quibble about, >> but structurally the plan makes sense to me, and I think it can work as >> a way for the community, both inside ICANN and the global community, to >> do something to improve ICANN accountability. I think it could achieve >> a lot given the dependency of the transition process on the >> accountability process. >> >> It looks like that at least for the next year, it is going to involve a >> whole bunch of work and steady attention from the SG. Between this and >> the transition, we will be busy. Not to mention the regular progression >> of GNSO issues that are already important and hard enough. >> >> Speaking of the IANA Transtion and the CWG charter, I have not seen the >> final version yet, but I do believe that the ICG language was put in as >> recommended by Milton. A few of us (indeed I was not a lone voice) also >> argued to keep the last line we had indicating that the IANA >> accountability issues were in scope for the CWG on IANA transition. I >> think we got that in, but I am not positive yet. I am hoping the SOACs >> approve the charter quickly as once that happens the group can start to >> work. >> >> >> avri >>