[CCWG-ACCT] A path to Dublin and beyond

Chartier, Mike S mike.s.chartier at intel.com
Sun Oct 4 03:50:49 UTC 2015


Good posts. Two points, one substance, one process:

WRT substance, ironically I think the only way you can “ensure those powers are enough to force a future change to ICANN” is by membership; because the other models don’t allow for the initiation and adoption of bylaws by anyone other than the Board.
Doubly ironic, if you could create a model that would allow the community to make a fundamental change to the bylaws, then you wouldn’t need membership- you would already have ultimate power.
However, such power is exactly what the board does not want; recall the first negative bullet of Fadi’s foil was “New structure with legal authority to change any and all bylaws”.
I think the only way a change like this would happen would be due to external influence- the IANA transition. If you ever needed to spend that leverage, this would be the issue.

As to process, it might be the case that the final proposal will be something other than membership, and eventually gain consensus at a meeting.
However that wouldn’t be defendable based on the existing public record. And a robust public record is important, not only for broad consensus, but in this case, is it a critical element of the domestic process. The notice of the CCWG consultations were posted in the Federal Register, which stated in relevant part:
“Comments provided will be used by NTIA to determine whether the proposals satisfy NTIA’s criteria and have received broad community support. Comments will also be considered in any NTIA certification before the U.S. Congress that may be required prior to terminating the existing IANA functions contract currently in place between NTIA and ICANN.  To ensure that all views are taken into consideration, NTIA encourages interested parties— including U.S.-based stakeholders—to file written comments by the deadline.”
Based on the two rounds of consultations, it might be the case that “refined” membership model would be supported by the public record; but a designator model wouldn’t be because of the record of the earlier rejection, and the MEM couldn’t be because it was only one submission.
So it may be possible to get consensus in Dublin on a refined membership model for transmission to NTIA.
And it may also be the case that we could get consensus in Dublin on some other model for a third proposal; but I think this would have to be for another round of consultation to build the requisite public record, not only to pass scrutiny domestically, but for broad international legitimacy and credibility.



From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Alan Greenberg
Sent: Saturday, October 3, 2015 6:20 PM
To: Chris Disspain; Steve DelBianco
Cc: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] A path to Dublin and beyond

Subject to the following comments, I would support this, and I suspect it would have general acceptance within At-Large.

The caveats:

- There are a number of ALAC comments to the current proposal that will still apply and will be critical. Pending the details analysis and resolution of the comments, I remain optimistic.

- Steve's message does not talk about "the model", so I presume it will be some variation of the board proposal (often referred to as MEM, even though the MEM is only a component of it). That proposal calls for the AC/SOs to take formal action through their Chairs. That idea was rejected by the CCWG quite a while ago for a number of reasons (reluctance of the people filling the Chair position to get involved at a personal level, the difficulty associated with an ongoing action at the time the Chair changes are the prime ones that I recall). The CCWG moved to UA and then the Empowered AC/SO as a result, and then to the Community Mechanism. The proved to be a stumbling block, but perhaps the Empowered AC/SO or Community Mechanism could be adapted to work here.

Alan

At 03/10/2015 05:00 PM, Chris Disspain wrote:

Steve,

Thank you for this. It chimes In essence with what I, and some others, have been saying for a while.

If we can coalesce around the powers you have listed (there may still be issues for some around the budget power and some differences around detail but nothing insurmountable IMO) and agree a pathway for ICANN 3.0 and beyond then I believe we can walk together as a community through the transition.

Happy to do whatever it takes to bring this to fruition in Dublin or shortly thereafter.

Cheers,

Chris

On 4 Oct 2015, at 07:34, Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco at netchoice.org<mailto:sdelbianco at netchoice.org> > wrote:


Here are my own thoughts on a path to Dublin and beyond.

I was thinking about Jonathan Zuck’s suggestion ( link<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/005764.html>) that a change to Membership model could be done in Work Stream 2 —” if we create lasting leverage for community to enact a change despite board resistance.

Then I read Bruce Tonkin's recent post ( link<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/006098.html>) describing why our present AC/SO participation falls short of representing the global M-S community, and suggesting this is why the board might not approve a move to Membership at this time.

Their posts, along with responses on list, suggest a way we can deliver by Dublin on enforceable accountability enhancements, thereby giving us powers to impose reforms to the AC/SO model after the IANA transition.

Consider this:

Let’s use the leverage of the IANA transition to get bylaws changes give the current AC/SO community the powers we require, with adequate enforceability.   Plus, we ensure those powers are enough to force a future change to ICANN governance structure and/or Membership, if the community comes to consensus around what that new ICANN governance structure look like.

That would mean we focus CCWG on finishing details and bylaws language for these enforceable powers exercised by supermajority of ACs and SOs:

1. Power to block a proposed Operating Plan/Strat Plan/Budget
2. Power to approve changes to Fundamental Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation
3. Power to block changes to regular bylaws.
4. Power to appoint and remove individual board directors
5. Power to recall the entire board of directors
6. Mechanism for binding IRP where a panel decision is enforceable in any court recognizing international arbitration results — even if ICCANN’s board refused to participate in the binding arbitration.  (assuming CCWG lawyers verify this works without activating a Membership model)

I think we are close enough to get consensus around the above powers before we leave Dublin.   And based on what we’ve heard recently, the board will support the powers described above.

But there’s one more we have to add before losing the leverage of this IANA transition:

Let’s put into ICANN bylaws a method where the community can show consensus to undertake a review of ICANN's governance structure, either because the powers above aren’t working, or just because the community overwhelmingly wants to review governance.   The goal of the Governance Review is to recommend a new governance model that might even include moving to Membership.  To Bruce’s point, any proposal emerging from this Governance Review would include assurances that ACs and SOs are representative of global internet users and protected from capture.

This same bylaw could describe a process for board acceptance of a consensus proposal emerging from the Governance Review:  it would take 2/3 board majority to object to the proposal on the grounds that it is not in the global public interest, triggering a board-community consultation.  After consultation, a new community proposal would take 3/4 board majority to object.   If the board objected a second time, we would have the power to recall that entire board, or to pursue binding arbitration.

Again, these are my personal thoughts about a way forward that is based on what others have said recently.

—Steve DelBianco



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