[council] Fwd: NCSG Proposal and Executive Summary

Mary Wong MWong at piercelaw.edu
Sun Mar 1 05:21:29 UTC 2009


Hello everyone,
 
I am forwarding, for your information and review, the charter that has
just been submitted by the NCUC on the proposed new Non-Commercial
Stakeholder Group (NCSG). As you will see from Robin Gross' email
(below) and the Executive Summary (attached), the NCUC has tried to
formulate a charter that will be a viable long-term, flexible structure
that also addresses the need for greater inclusiveness and participation
(especially of individual users) while endorsing the move toward
consensus-based working group policy formulation. 
 
We believe the charter, which in its present form was crafted through
an ongoing process of consultation and feedback-gathering both within
the NCUC and with other interested groups (e.g. the ALAC), represents
the most thorough and best attempt to date to meet the Board's
articulated goals for constituency/GNSO revitalization. The NCUC
Councillors, Chair and Executive Committee will be very happy to discuss
any aspect of the proposed charter during the Mexico meeting and,
indeed, any time following.
 
Best regards,
Mary



Subject: NCSG Proposal and Executive Summary

28 February 2009
To: ICANN Board, Peter Dengate Thrush, Chair
From: Robin Gross, Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency
Dear Peter:
The NCUC is pleased to submit a proposed charter for the new
Noncommercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG). 
We have been working on this charter since June of 2008, and have
entered into extensive consultations with ICANN staff members, ALAC, At
Large representatives, Board members and our own constituency members on
its development. We have been asked by staff to prepare a cover letter
to accompany the proposal which provides an executive summary and
explains why we have adopted innovative approaches to certain problems
posed by the formation of stakeholder groups. 
The essential elements of this proposal are:
Noncommercial stakeholders join the NCSG directly, and the NCSG keeps
track of membership and administers voting for Council seats by the
membership as a whole. The NCSG is administered by an annually elected
Chair and a Policy Committee. The Policy Committee is composed of the 6
elected GNSO Councilors and one representative from each Constituency.
There are three classes of membership: 1) large organizations (which
receive 4 votes), small organizations (which receive 2 votes) and
individuals (who receive 1 vote). Constituencies are formed as sub-units
within the NCSG.  We have deliberately made it relatively easy to form
and join constituencies; at the same time we have de-linked Constituency
formation from Council seats so that NCSG participants do not have
artificial incentives to fragment into competing groups.  If the Board
wishes to approve constituency formation under these terms we will
embody this requirement in the charter. Constituencies are given special
rights to propose Working Groups and assured that their positions are
incorporated into any and all public comments submitted by the NCSG into
the policy development process. To protect the voice of minorities in
the policy process, we require allNCSG representatives on the GNSO
Council to vote in favor of the formation of a Working Group if it has
the support of 1/3 of the constituencies or 1/5 of the whole membership.

Now we would like to explain how this plan advances the principles and
goals of the GNSO Improvements process.  As you know, the Board has
articulated four “vital principles” that are critical to the GNSO
revitalization process.  They are:

§       GNSO policy development activities should become more visible
and transparent to a wider range of stakeholders; 
§       Reforms should enhance the representativeness of the GNSO
Council and its constituencies; 
§       Operational changes should help enhance the GNSO’s ability to
reach consensus on policy positions that enjoy wide support in the ICANN
community; and 
§       GNSO stakeholder representation structures need to be flexible
and adaptable. 
Our proposal meets these goals better than any of the proposed
alternatives. 
Principle 1: Visibility and Transparency. 
When noncommercial stakeholders are fragmented into independent
constituencies, each with their own mailing list, administrative
structure and representatives, it is literally impossible for an
ordinary noncommercial organization to keep track of them all.
Noncommercial stakeholders in one constituency would have no idea what
is happening in other constituencies.  Our proposal integrates all
policy deliberation and voting into a unified structure.  This enhances
the visibility and transparency of the SG.
Principle 2: Representativeness.
Our proposal enhances representation in several ways.  First, by
adopting a model of flexible and easy-to-form constituencies as
sub-units within the NCSG, we allow a far more diverse set of interests
and coalitions to form.  Most important, through unified voting for GNSO
Council seats, our proposal ensures that whoever represents
noncommercial stakeholders on the Council has support across all
constituencies, not just a bare majority of a small subgroup of the SG.

Principle 3: Consensus.
We believe that the old GNSO constituency structure, which assigns a
specific number of Council seats to specific constituencies, is inimical
to the formation of consensus.  That approach encourages small subgroups
to break away and form their “own” constituencies in order to gain a
guaranteed Council seat.  Once a constituency controls specific Council
seats/votes, they have little incentive to seek support from other
Council members for their views or their representatives.  We already
have evidence from this; we note that none of the “new constituencies”
currently being proposed for the Noncommercial Stakeholders actually
represent newcomers to the ICANN space as envisioned.  All of them are
existing members of NCUC or RALOs who wish to gain guaranteed seats on
the GNSO Council without having to win an election among a large number
of other noncommercial entities and individuals. 
Our proposal is understands that policy development in the new GNSO
will not come from a Council acting as a legislator, but from
consensus-based Working Groups.  Therefore, we allow relatively small
minorities of the NCSG to bind our Council representatives to support
the formation of a Working Group.  Once a Working Group is formed, its
proponents will have to convince many other stakeholders to agree on a
common policy.  We think there should be a low threshold for the
formation of a WG, so that anyone can have a chance to convince the rest
of the GNSO of the need for a policy. 
Principle 4: Flexibility and Adaptability.
The old constituency model is broken.  It rigidly assigns Council seats
and representation to categories of users that are constantly changing,
categories that may overlap in numerous ways.  Dividing the world up
into mutually exclusive categories known as “constituencies” is always
bound to exclude some people who don’t fit the categories, and at the
same time over-represent entities who qualify for two or three of the
categories.  By detaching Constituencies from Council seats, our
proposal can make constituencies much more flexible and lightweight.  We
make constituencies more like intra-Stakeholder Group working groups –
easier to form and not mutually exclusive.  NCSG members can join
multiple constituencies, and constituencies can form and disband more
easily without disrupting the entire representational structure of the
NCSG.  
Under the old model, once a constituency is formed, there is a strong
danger that it can be captured or controlled by a small group,
especially as membership and participation declines.  The NCSG charter
proposed here solves this problem by situating constituencies in a large
NCSG membership that cannot be easily captured. 
We hope the Board appreciates the careful thought and collective effort
that went into this proposal.  We are of course willing to modify it
based on reasoned comments and criticisms that may come from the Board
and any other noncommercial groups that have not been involved.  We look
forward to consulting with you in Mexico and at future meetings as we
hone the details of the proposal.  Thank you.
Best regards,
Robin D. Gross,
Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency



 
 
Mary W S Wong
Professor of Law
Franklin Pierce Law Center
Two White Street
Concord, NH 03301
USA
Email: mwong at piercelaw.edu 
Phone: 1-603-513-5143
Webpage: http://www.piercelaw.edu/marywong/index.php 
Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network
(SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=437584 

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