[CCWG-Accountability] Regarding how bylaw changes are made

Thu Jan 1 23:08:57 UTC 2015

Dear Kavouss

Thank you for this question which is a very sensible one.  Let me try to clarify what I am trying to accomplish by my proposal.

I am a complete and firm support of Board accountability to the Community.  That is 100% clear and I think you and I are in firm agreement on that.

I may, however, not be clear about my method and process.  From my perspective the strongest accountability would be with a clear Bylaw limitation on ICANN functionality and a provision for an outside arbiter.  Both of those changes would require Board approval.  I am not trying to subordinate the CCWG to the Board.   Far from it – what I am trying to do is find out as early in the process whether the Board is going to be willing to agree to subordinate itself to the Community through those mechanisms.  

So, I think the place where you may misunderstand me is at the very end of your note – where you say “why you want to limit CCWG to just follow those areas of accountability that Board wishes?”   I think you are assuming that if the Board said “no” to the questions I was asking that my reaction would be to say “oh … oh well.  That is OK.  If the Board won’t agree, we can’t do it.”

My real reaction, in practice, would be exactly the opposite – I would urge the Community to dig in for an extended discussion with the Board and use my limited powers of persuasion to rally the community to demand that the Board changed its mind.  :)  And I would probably urge CCWG to recommend those same things anyway – but at least we would do that knowing what was going to happen.

Does that help?

Regards

Paul

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From: Kavouss Arasteh [mailto:kavouss.arasteh at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 1, 2015 4:39 PM
To: Paul Rosenzweig
Cc: Seun Ojedeji; accountability-cross-community at icann.org
Subject: Re: [CCWG-Accountability] Regarding how bylaw changes are made

Dear Paul,

The way you commenting on the matter could have two different interprétations or leave two different impressions:

A) You are a firm supporter of accountabilty process when we note your comments about Mathieu

B) You wish to raise the question Under discussion to the Board asking what they wish to see from CCWG and what they do not see from CCWG .The latter interpretation ,in my view, seems to be subordinating CCWG to the Board in the sense that we just study, elaborate and recoomend those area of accountability that Board is comfortable with but not CCWG address the full picture, objectives, requiremnets of accountability.

Pls find a coherence between interpretation A) and interpretation B) .In order words if you are really in favour of addressing the accountability in a fullflege scope why you want to limit CCWG to just follow those areas of accountability that Board wishes?
Thank you very much to clarify your position.

Best Regards

Kavouss 

2015-01-01 21:35 GMT+01:00 Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com <mailto:paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com> >:

Bruce is a wonderful man.  But we don’t need his opinion, we need a formal commitment from the Board.  That’s why we need to ask the question in an official manner.  

Indeed, I would posit that if the accountability working group tasked with ensuring accountability by ICANN is reluctant to even ask the Board a question then the communities capacity to actually reign in Board excess when/if it perceives such would be very limited.  If we are so unwilling to even ask a question, will we be willing to tell the Board “no.”

In any event, if we choose not to ask this question, then the scope of WS1 has just expanded to essentially include almost all oversight mechanisms we might conceivably want – which would, I think, be the wrong result.

Warm regards

Paul

**NOTE:  OUR NEW ADDRESS -- EFFECTIVE 12/15/14 ***

509 C St. NE

Washington, DC 20002

Paul Rosenzweig

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From: Kavouss Arasteh [mailto:kavouss.arasteh at gmail.com <mailto:kavouss.arasteh at gmail.com> ] 
Sent: Thursday, January 1, 2015 10:09 AM
To: Seun Ojedeji
Cc: accountability-cross-community at icann.org <mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org> 
Subject: Re: [CCWG-Accountability] Regarding how bylaw changes are made

Dear All 

I agree to the term that no one should dictate the CCWG.

Still why there is a need that we  raise any such question to the Board,

 Bruce is quite active and requested to continue the Liaison

Kavouss

Sent from my iPhone

On 1 Jan 2015, at 15:28, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com <mailto:seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for this information, I will then suggest that this WG determine if those steps will indeed be appropriate for us especially since WS1 is more of a perquisite to transition. One would expect some adjustments on timing and wording rights to be made in the process, also board voting rights in this particular process may need to be agreed upon. It will not be encouraging to have  implementation stopped on the basis of no 2/3 board majority....time utilization is an important factor in all these. So the earlier we involve board (without having them dictate for us) the better.

Regards
sent from Google nexus 4
kindly excuse brevity and typos.

On 1 Jan 2015 04:55, "Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au <mailto:Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au> > wrote:

Hello Seun,

>>  I think writing to board to know how it will treat the WG outcome especially when some of it's implementations will require by-law modifications that further involve the ICANN community in decision making process may be useful.

In terms of the process for making bylaws changes, changes have previously been made to accommodate recommendations from the review teams associated with the work of the Accountability and Transparency Review Teams (ATRT)  https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/atrt-2012-02-25-en .

Any archive of all previous versions of the bylaws is available here:
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/archive-bc-2012-02-25-en

Based on our current practice I would expect the process to be as follows:

- Board accepts recommendations from the CCWG

- General Counsel's office prepares specific text to change in the bylaws

- proposed bylaws changes are put out for public comment  (45 days)

- Board then votes on the bylaws amendments  - a 2/3 majority of the Board is required to make a bylaw change

If there is significant community comments against the proposed bylaws language - then a new draft of the bylaws would be put out for public comment that is consistent with the recommendations from the CCWG.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin

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