[CCWG-ACCT] [CWG-Stewardship] [bylaws-coord] DRAFT NEW ICANN BYLAWS - 2 April 2016 version - SCWG

[Dr Eberhard W Lisse]

According to our Charter, there are no votes, nor makes being a Participant a difference, unless there is a consensus call.

el
-- 
Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini 4

> On 11 Apr 2016, at 14:08, Andrew Sullivan <ajs at anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> Particularly given the nature of this discussion, I want to point out
> that I'm just a participant and have no vote here :)
> 
>> On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 06:41:30PM -0400, Greg Shatan wrote:
>> I agree with the concerns raised here regarding the use of a majority level
>> of decision-making in the SCWG.  The registries (with 6 seats) nearly hold
>> a majority, and as Seun notes, the registries/registrars do hold a
>> majority.  This by itself is probably enough to disqualify a majority as an
>> appropriate measure.
>> 
>> Consensus would be far more appropriate (I don't think this needs to be
>> "full consensus," however).
> 
> I'm hanging this on Greg's message because I think he makes an
> important point, but one where I'd put some different emphasis.  Let
> us recall that the bylaws-writing process is supposed to implement the
> community proposals, and not change them.  So, what does the community
> proposal say about this?
> 
> There are two relevant bits that come from the CWG's proposal Annex L.
> The first is this sentence: "The SCWG will follow the overall
> guidelines and procedures for ICANN Cross Community Working Groups."
> The second is the repeated emphasis in Annex L on supermajorities of
> the GNSO and ccNSO.
> 
> As far as I understand it, the normal rules for an ICANN CCWG are that
> consensus is preferable, but that otherwise voting members can make a
> decision by majority.  If we are going to deviate from that, then, we
> need to have some interpretation that is still consistent with the
> proposal, because the proposal is what the community has already
> agreed to.  There is no hint in the proposal that a supermajority of
> anyone except the ccNSO and GNSO is required, so it is not in keeping
> with the proposal to impose additional requirements now.
> 
> It seems to me, however, that the tradition of "majority fallback" in
> CCWGs could be of use here.  Implementation could be a fallback
> majority not just of the membership, but also reqiure the majority to
> come from a majority of the appointing organizations.  There are ten
> organizations that appoint voting members and 13 voting members; so
> under the current arrangement, when voting were required it would need
> at least 7 votes appointed by at least 6 different bodies.  I suspect
> this is a deviation from the proposal in Annex L, but it seems to me
> to be in the spirit of Annex L and would doubtless be an acceptable
> way to charter at least some CCWGs.
> 
> The counter argument might be that this threshold is now too high.
> But the calculation that has made people worried is that, assuming
> registries and registrars decide to form a bloc, they could act alone.
> On the same bloc theory, registries and registrars already comprise
> appointments from 4 organizations.  So only two more votes would be
> needed (making the effective majority for separation 9 when all
> registries and registrars vote the same way).
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A
> 
> -- 
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
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