[CCWG-Accountability] Op-Ed from ITIF regarding permanent cross-community group as ultimate authority

[Steve DelBianco]

This pertains to our discussion yesterday about a permanent, cross-community ‘Membership’ group to hold ICANN board and management accountable to the community.  It was described this way in draft3<https://community.icann.org/download/attachments/51414327/WorkArea2%20Accountability%20suggestions%20%5Bdraft%203%5D.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1418610739000&api=v2> for work area 2:

Amend ICANN bylaws to recognize a permanent cross-community representative structure (all ACs, SOs, Constituencies) with authority to:
Appoint members of Affirmation review teams
Review a board decision, or resolve a dispute (option to use independent panel)
Approve changes to ICANN bylaws or Articles, with 2/3 approval
Approve annual proposed ICANN budget
Recall one or all ICANN Board members

One of the groups proposing<http://www.innovationfiles.org/key-principles-for-the-icann-transition/> a community of stakeholders as ultimate authority posted a relevant Op-Ed<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/227375-icann-transition-plan-needs-new-ideas-to-ensure-accountability> in a Washington paper today.  Daniel Castro of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) wrote:

California state law applies since ICANN is a registered nonprofit corporation in the state. As such, California law allows nonprofit organizations to have statutory members. Gunnarson suggests that one way to provide an effective check on the ICANN board's power is to create statutory members of ICANN with extensive authority over the board. This authority could include removing board members, overturning board decisions, etc. The statutory members would likely include the chairs of the various ICANN "supporting organizations" and "advisory committees," such as the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) responsible for IP address policy and the Country Code Name Supporting Organization (ccNSO) responsible for managing the country code top-level domains. To ensure that the statutory members do not hold too much sway, their actions could be limited to situations where there is a supermajority (i.e., consensus).

We welcome further elaboration of legal basis to enable this modification to ICANN’s bylaws in conformance with California law.


Steve DelBianco
Executive Director
NetChoice
http://www.NetChoice.org<http://www.netchoice.org/> and http://blog.netchoice.org<http://blog.netchoice.org/>
+1.202.420.7482




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