[CCWG-ACCT] Voting weights in community mechanism

Edward Morris egmorris1 at toast.net
Thu Jul 30 01:04:35 UTC 2015


Hi all,
  
 Thanks for responding to our concerns about the ability of Board 
appointees to block the communities ability to remove Board members. It was 
pretty obvious once you examined the proposal as is the political reality 
that giving any voting power to the United States military, through it's 
3/12 member representation at RSSAC, is going to cause problems. You guys 
are under such time pressure mistakes are going to happen and the 
consequences of actions may not always be readily apparent. I don't blame 
you: there is no Dummies guide to restructuring a major international 
corporation in 7 months or less. Writing such a book just might be a wise 
career choice once you wrap up this project. 
  
 I hope you in good faith are not going to try to claim that there is 
consensus for the 5 X2 model. Just so that illusion is busted I oppose that 
model for the 1) inclusion of the U.S. military as a voting member through 
RSSAC, 2) an unwarranted change of the power balance and functions of the 
respective SOAC's when compared to current voting arrangements, which 
violates the CCWG policy published in the legal scoping document of 19 
March 2015 , a consensus policy whose reversal has not been discussed or 
approved by the group,  3) the lack of safeguard against capture through 
coordinated manipulation taking advantage of the possibility of parties to 
simultaneously belong to multiple SO's and AC's, 4) problems of double 
dipping per number 3 which violate the principle of one person / one party 
one vote which is customary international law and required by ICANN through 
it's Bylaws commitment to adhere to international law...plus likely a 
number of other problems that neither of us have thought of given the 
rushed nature of things. 
  
 I sadly will not be on the calls later today due to pre-existing work 
commitments and the last minute scheduling of the calls.
  
 I would respectfully request that if you are going to go ahead with 
putting the 5 X 2 proposal in the public comment materials you truthfully 
and transparency note that this proposal was a last minute substitute for a 
proposal that was deemed inadequate. I understand that this was our 
previous proposal but we don't know what the response would have been had 
we not ditched it. I agree with Keith that we will need to discuss all of 
this again once the public comments are received.
  
 With regards to the minority reports I appreciate the situation you are 
in. I do not, however, accept the explanation offered by Thomas that 
minority reports will be accepted later but just won't make the 
publication. I'm not a big fan of separate but equal. Minority views not in 
the initial published report  are at a distinct disadvantage  in terms of 
public receipt and review. We all know this. Let's stop pretending. You are 
good guys but you're starting to act like those we want to hold 
accountable. I know you really don't want to set the precedent of shorting 
minority rights. Thomas, as our GNSO representative I am informing you that 
there are at least two groups of GNSO members who are preparing minority 
reports but do not believe they can get it done by noon tomorrow. If you 
can't do anything, fine, but be please be prepared to explain it to them at 
the next Council meeting. I've tried but they are not accepting my 
explanations and, frankly, I don't blame them.
  
 Thanks for considering, thanks for your hard work and good luck on the 
calls later today.
  
 Best,
  
 Edward Morris
  
  
  

----------------------------------------
 From: "Drazek, Keith" <kdrazek at verisign.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 12:11 AM
To: "Mathieu.Weill at afnic.fr" <Mathieu.Weill at afnic.fr>, 
"accountability-cross-community at icann.org" 
<accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Voting weights in community mechanism   
Thanks to the Co-Chairs for this message.

I agree that the best approach at this time is to revert to the 5x5 and 2X2 
reference model included in our first proposal. It received support and we 
obviously don't have consensus on a replacement model. We'll continue to 
discuss and debate the issue of vote distribution, but I suggest we'd be 
better off doing so AFTER we receive community feedback from the upcoming 
public comment period.

Regards,
Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org 
[mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of 
Mathieu Weill
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 9:37 PM
To: accountability-cross-community at icann.org
Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Voting weights in community mechanism

Dear Colleagues,

You will remember that our Initial Report Reference Model on voting weights 
was 5 votes for ccNSO, gNSO, ASO, ALAC and GAC, 2 for SSAC and RSSAC. 
During the public comment period, we have received some comments (largely 
debated since on the list) with regards to the respective number of votes 
of gNSO and ALAC, and these are well noted.

During our call on Tuesday we discussed the voting weight section of the 
community mechanism proposal and asked for WP1 to refine its proposal 
accordingly. The topic was then discussed again during the WP1 call that 
followed a few hours later. WP1 agreed to submit to our group a proposal 
with 5 votes for each SO or AC, pending intentions from GAC, SSAC and RSSAC 
to joint the mechanism as voting members. (see latest doc here :
https://community.icann.org/download/attachments/52888421/5A2-Community-Mech
anism-Voting-PenultimateDraft.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1438079125000&a
pi=v2)

A concern has come to our attention with this latest, new, proposal. If 
SSAC and RSSAC have 10 votes out of 35, they could jointly block a Board 
recall (75% votes required, 27 votes). Since they are both composed of 
individuals appointed by the Board, some may question their independence in 
case such a power is triggered. This could raise concerns of conflicts of 
interest.

We discussed this between co-chairs and with Jordan as WP1 rapporteurs, and 
as a consequence would like to suggest we go back to the initial Reference 
model (5x5 and 2x2 votes) as a basis for our public comment document.

This proposal will be on our agenda for Thursday's calls but we wanted to 
provide this heads-up in advance in order to facilitate an informed 
discussion.

Best regards,
Thomas, Leon & Mathieu
Co-chairs

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