[CWG-Stewardship] Update on the Integrated model.

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 02:06:08PM +0000, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

>  One concern I have about your proposed variation is the use of a
> NomCom like approach.  The NomCom as it is configured today is made
> up of people who are selected by the multi-stakeholder community but
> once they are selected they are really not accountability to the
> groups that select them.  They are presumably accountable to the
> public interest but that is an ill-defined concept that means
> different things to different people and I am not sure that will
> ever change and maybe it shouldn't except with regard to the issues
> of security and stability, which I think there is broad agreement.

I probably don't fully understand the worry here, but before I start I
should note that this was sort of a throw-away.  The real point I was
trying to make is that the proposal as circulated is partly gated on
getting the RIRs and IETF to appoint people to a newly-created board,
on hammering out agreements (across three organizations) about how to
structure that board, and maybe even on working out new legal
agreements and so on.  I am not convinced this will be easy.  So, I
was suggesting that, by using the straight subsidiary approach we
might be able to skirt all those problems, and I said "nomcom" becuase
it's a mechanism we're all at least somewhat familiar with.  (Note
that it needn't be the same nomcom as is used to build the ICANN
board.  These two boards ought to have different functions.)

Anyway, your worry suggests that the point of the PTI board is to
represent the various groups.  I suppose that's one approach, but
another is to decide that the PTI board is just a board of PTI, and
that representativity is not that important.  This might be a
practical answer if the IANA's remit is conceived narrowly enough.  On
the other hand, if various groups think that representativity is
important enough, maybe the right thing to do is direct appointment
from all the ICANN stakeholder communities, with right of recall.  I
wouldn't be opposed to that, _provided that_ the IANA board was
clearly disempowered to be used as an appeals mechanism for policy
disputes.  That is, the PTI could function the way NTIA officially
does in asking, "Did the ICANN process follow its own rules?"  It
should _not_ be permitted to try to re-examine the policy
considerations that went into a decision.  This is exactly the way the
IANA works now.  In my opinion, completely independent board
appointments that cannot be recalled are actually more likely to
ensure that sort of behaviour, but I can imagine an argument for the
opposite conclusion.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com