[council] AWOL and the reform proposals

[Gomes, Chuck]

Avri,
 
I did not assume such a restrictive role for the Council under the
proposed improvements, i.e., " the Council only being responsible for
process management".  I assumed that the Council's responsibilities
would include policy management in a broader sense than just process
management although I think the two areas are hard to differentiate in
some cases.  I fully agree with you that the policy items you identified
should be the responsibility of the Council under the proposed model and
would add to your examples the following: ensuring that policy
development work complies with Bylaws restrictions defining consensus
policy development (a change recommended in the recommendations) or, if
the work does not apply as possible consensus policy development, making
that clear to the working group in advance and throughout the process as
needed.
 
When I made my public comments in the GNSO Improvements Workshop on
Monday, I made them with the above assumption.  That is why I thought
that there would still be good motivation to participate on the Council.
If in fact, the BGC WG intended the more restrictive role of the Council
as you concluded, then I would have more empathy for the concern about
attracting qualified participants to the Council.
 
It seems to me that it would be very good if you, as chair, seek
clarification from the BGC WG in this regard so that we know whether or
not there is a concern here that we should address or not.  
 
Chuck Gomes
 
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________________________________

	From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org
[mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
	Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 10:14 AM
	To: Council GNSO
	Subject: Re: [council] AWOL and the reform proposals
	
	
	Hi, 


	I sent the following in to the gnso-improvements list during the
meeting on Monday.

	a.

	----

	To the members of the committee:


	First I thank the working group for its efforts and find myself
in agreement with much of the report.

	While I agree that the GNSO Council should not be a legislative
body, I am concerned about scope in your definition of "management." The
report seems rather explicit in defining management solely as
responsibility for process. I think that the notion of management needs
to be expanded to include responsibility for Policy management.

	I think the idea of the Council only being responsible for
process management is too limited. And while I accept the arguments that
this will make recruitment much more difficult, not only among
constituencies and stakeholder group, but within the Nomcom process, I
think that this is the lesser of the problems with this approach.

	I support the idea of Working Groups, despite the challenge
involved in creating working groups that are of sufficiently diverse and
of manageable size. I think that the Council needs to remain responsible
for the policy activities and output of the working groups. Not only do
I think that councillors should be chosen as stewards for these Working
Groups, but I believe that the Council should have a role in determining
whether the policy recommendations are compatible with ICANN mission and
core value and other policy recommendations. Beyond this there is a need
to make sure that the various policy recommendation are not seen
individually but are seen in the light of other policy processes and
efforts. This does not mean that the council should be able to reject
the work of a working group because it disagrees with the conclusions.
It does mean that the council should be able to return policy
recommendations to the working group with policy issues and concerns
that it believes are not adequately dealt with.

	I agree with the comment that Thomas Narten made, it is critical
for the council to have a voice in deciding whether the policy
recommendations of a working group are good for the Internet community.
To me, this means that the council must retain a policy management role.

	Avri

	On 2 nov 2007, at 06.59, Philip Sheppard wrote:


		Fellow Council members,
		many apologies for missing the meetings in LA this week
but alas my duties as IPRA president intervened.
		And I was flying during our voting meeting so could not
dial-in without bankrupting the BC.
		 
		Anyway, it seems that some good progress was made on
many issues (though I note not on the politically sensitive issue of
IGOs). 
		 
		GNSO reform
		The reform proposals pose some fundamental challenges to
the heritage we guard known as the bottom-up process.
		While we may differ in outcomes with respect to
constituency boundary changes, it may be productive to have debate on
some of the wider issues of the reform proposals.
		In particular it would be good to know fellow Council
members views on the objective that Council should manage the PDP but
not decide (if I may paraphrase).
		This objective is separate to its implementation (eg
work groups ) for which I see little need to debate as we do them anyway
when we believe they are right to do.
		 
		But I am concerned that the objective may weaken Council
by diminishing the incentive for participation.
		 
		It would be good to learn of opinions on this.
		 
		 
		 
		Philip 


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