[gnso-review-dt] NPOC comments, remarks and statement to the GNSO rec 23.

[Rudi Vansnick]

Dear GNSO review party members,

NPOC has reviewed the Westlake Governance's Final GNSO Review Report and submits the following comments and observations. 

First, we wish to set the context for these comments. NPOC consists of and represents non-profit and civil society constituency organizations. NPOC strives to encompass and represent the interests and concerns of that vast constituency of organizations for whom the Internet ecosystem and DNS operational concerns impact on their mission and their work, but for whom their mission and work focus on community development, social justice, human services, etc., and not on the Internet per se. 

NPOC sees outreach to the constituency to raise awareness and engagement as central to its mission, and as important as bringing constituency organizations into ICANN volunteer work and ICANN policy development and implementation. For a multistakeholder organization to survive and thrive there is need for broad and deep constituency engagement. 

In NPOC’s review of the Final GNSO Review Report two specific issues stand out. 
The first concern, shared with other constituencies, is that the methods used to gather and analyze evidence in the report have serious shortcomings. 
The second is that a number of the conclusions and recommendations lack appreciation of the context within ICANN, lack an adequate evidence base, and are under defined for purposes of implementation.
However, NPOC does not wish to address specific issues within the conclusions and recommendations contained in the Report. To do so would overlook the broader issue of methods used. It also risks offering validation of Report content where validation is not warranted. 

NPOC has larger concerns with regard to the potential uses of the Report. NPOC would have no issue with the Final GNSO Review Report being treated as a "green paper" and food for thought within the ICANN multistakeholder community. NPOC would have serious reservations about the report being used as "expert" justification for top-down ICANN Board action with regard to the GNSO. That would be an abuse of the ways in which expertise should be incorporated into decision making in what should be a bottom up multistakeholder decision making process. 

In short, NPOC calls for the Board to treat the Westlake Final GNSO Review Report as food for thought and return the Review of the GNSO to a bottom up stakeholder decision making process. Such a process may take longer, and be a bit less orderly, but it will have greater legitimacy within ICANN’s remit as a multistakeholder organization and produce better results in the long run. 

Rudi Vansnick
Chair Non-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC)
www.npoc.org <http://www.npoc.org/>

rudi.vansnick at npoc.org
Tel : +32 (0)9 329 39 16
Mobile : +32 (0)475 28 16 32

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