[council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and Amendments

Mon Jun 14 15:50:42 UTC 2010

See my comments below as well.  I think we now have a common
understanding, at least among Bill, Kristina and I.  And I think that
brings us closer to possible agreement.

Chuck

From: Rosette, Kristina [mailto:krosette at cov.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 9:39 AM
To: William Drake; Gomes, Chuck
Cc: GNSO Council List; Knobenw
Subject: RE: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and
Amendments

see my comments interspersed below.  I'll be offline (for ICANN matters)
until tomorrow.

________________________________

From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 4:17 AM
To: Gomes, Chuck
Cc: Rosette, Kristina; GNSO Council List; Knobenw
Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and
Amendments

	Hello, 

	It seems there are two levels to this discussion.  The broader
one concerns the nature and role of the Council.  Kristina argues that
the Council " has been greatly restricted in the restructuring and the
initially proposed mechanism goes beyond that role," and that "having a
slightly more complicated process at the SG level is far preferable to
having the Council take on an SG role and make nominations independent
of the community."  I wasn't around when the veterans among us were
having the constitutional discussions leading to Council reform, so I
guess I'm not sufficiently clueful on how everyone sees this.  While I
understand that Council is now supposed to be more a
coordinator/facilitator of community processes than the doer of all
things, I did not take this to mean that it cannot legitimately make
decisions via votes on matters like adding a person or two to enhance
the diversity of the GNSO's RT nominations because that would be acting
independently of the community.  I thought we were elected to represent
our respective slices of the community and after consulting with them
could act in their names, and if they don't like what we've done we get
unelected in the next cycle.  So then what decisions can we take that do
not constitute acting independently of the community, where's the
boundary line?  If I'm the only one who is perplexed I hope someone will
straighten me out in Brussels...

	[Gomes, Chuck] There may always be a challenge in drawing this
line.  I think we should error on the side of making sure that we
involve our respective groups as much as possible when we represent
their views but there will be times when other factors put some
limitations on that so we need to be able to deal with those factors as
well.  Two that come to mind are: 1) imposed time restrictions; 2) the
need to collaboratively work with other ICANN organizations.  I don't
know that I need to comment on the first one except to say that we need
to try to allow as much lead time as possible to make decisions when it
is in our control so that we can adequately consult with our group
members.  Regarding the second factor, a reality that we have to deal
with is that other groups such as the ccNSO and the GAC do not operate
in the same way we do; in particular, they do not have the same
procedural requirements as we do nor do they apply the representational
concept as we do.  How can we be cooperative in working with them when
our processes differ in a lot of ways.  We obviously cannot impose our
processes and requirements on them and if we are rigid about how we do
things, it could come across as being unresponsive.  So what am I
saying?  I think there needs to be some balance and flexibility,
especially on issues that involve issues for which the Council has
already established fairly clear positions, either formally via
published recommendations or informally via Council discussions.

	Anyway, on the issue at hand, Chuck your understanding of the
drafting team's proposal is not different from everyone else's.  The
text clearly says "The Council will consider the resulting list of up to
four nominees at its next teleconference.  If the list does not meet the
above mentioned diversity objectives, the Council as a whole may choose
to endorse up to two additional candidates..."  Two additional is
additive, not substitutive.   

	KR:  The distinction between additional and substitutive was not
clear to me and to many others.  (I suspect it was the multiple uses of
the word additional.)  I'm pleased to know it's truly additional; that's
helpful.  

	[Gomes, Chuck] And I am pleased that I didn't misunderstand.
Kristina, does this change your possible amendment in anyway?  Will you
be able to submit your proposed amendment by Tuesday or soon thereafter?

	To my knowledge, the notion that after considering diversity
options the Council would endorse only four (Kristina's Step 2, below)
is new, it wasn't included in the amendment language she sent to the
list (quoted at the bottom) and I don't recall anyone suggesting it on
the call.   

	KR:  See note above.  I've included below a revised
step-by-step.  

	Scenario 1 (diversity goals met with SG nominees):  Council
receives 4 nominated (or whatever we're calling them) candidates (1 from
each SG), diversity goals are satisfied, so Council endorses all four
candidates.  

	Scenario 2 (diversity goals not met):

	Step1:  Council receives 4 nominated SG candidates (1 from each
SG)  and endorses all four.  However, diversity goals are not met.

	Step 2:  Council then considers the  alternate candidates named
by the SGs.  If  selecting one or two of these alternate candidates will
result in a slate that overall meets diversity goals, Council may
endorse up to two of them in addition to the candidates endorsed in Step
1. If not, see Step 3.

	Step 3:  Council then considers all remaining persons in the
applicant pool (e.g., all persons who submitted applications but weren't
nomiated by SGs or identified as "additional candidates).  The last
sentence in my number 4 was directed to this step.

	[Gomes, Chuck] This is what I had understood in our meeting last
week.  Step 2 does provide the opportunity for more direct input from
SGs and in that regard is very good.  As long as that happens in advance
as proposed, it should not lengthen the time of the process and that is
a positive as well.

	From my standpoint, this is even more problematic than what we
were talking about previously.  It would either a) astronomically
politicize the process by raising the prospect that Council could
overturn SG's one-per endorsements, leading to inter-SG squabbling over
whose gets dumped and associated bad feelings...and talk about
undercutting SG sovereignty!; or b) create really strong disincentives
to do anything to enhance diversity in order to avoid that scenario.   

	KR:  No need to worry.  This was a misunderstanding.  

	The whole point of the drafting team proposal was to make the
process simple and apolitical, driven in large part by the fact that the
ATRT model with the two competitive seats appeared to generate a lot of
confusion and agitation within one SG in Nairobi.  This proposal would
plunge us far in the opposite direction. 

	KR:  see above.   

	Circling back to what we were talking about yesterday, the text
below that Kristina sent Thursday during the call says, "the Council as
a whole may choose to endorse up to two additional candidates, from
among those identified by the stakeholder groups under item 2."  That
plainly means only those identified by the stakeholder groups under item
2, there's no misunderstanding here.   

	KR:  No, Bill. The language I suggested was:

	Change the now-third sentence of point 4 to read: If, however,
the list does not meet the above mentioned diversity objectives, the
Council as a whole may choose to endorse up to two additional
candidates, from among those identified by the stakeholder groups under
item 2, who would help to give the list of GNSO nominees the desired
balance.  If consideration of these additional stakeholder
group-identified candidates does not meet the diversity objectives, the
Council may refer to the GNSO applicant pool to identify these
additional candidates.

	As my language proposed, the Council would first look to the
additional (perhaps calling them alternate as I've done above would be
helpful) candidates, if any, identified by the SGs.  (The bolded
language above)  If considering the alternate candidates does not meet
the diversity goals (the italicized language), the Council then looks to
the entire pool.  Chuck's interpretation of my proposal is correct. 

	 In yesterday's message she instead proposes what Chuck
suggested on the call, that the rest of the pool could in fact be
considered, but only after Council has discussed SGs' back-up
endorsements.  This is better from the standpoint of those of us who
think Council should be able to consider the whole pool, but as I said
yesterday it's not obvious why we would need to legislate what we would
undoubtedly do anyway based on common sense and courtesy.   

	KR:  See above as to what I proposed. As for common sense and
courtesy, it would be great if we could rely on that.  However, in the
absence of a procedure to the contrary, there's no guarantee.  That's
not something we're willing to leave to chance.  

	 But if it makes folks happier....While we're at it, maybe we
should also codify the precise sequence of the discussion, i.e. the
order in which SG back-ups get considered and the time allotted to each?

	KR:  There's no need for snarkiness, Bill.  

	Best,

	Bill

	On Jun 14, 2010, at 6:24 AM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

	All this makes me think that my understanding may be different
than everyone else.   I understood that endorsements by the SGs would
remain regardless of what the Council might do to improve diversity.  If
the Council was successful at gaining support for one or two candidates
that improved the diversity of the pool, then the pool of endorsed
candidates would increase to 5 or 6 depending on whether one or two
additional candidates were selected.  The difference as I understood it
between what Kristina proposed and the original procedure, which is
apparently wrong, was that the step in the original procedures the
Council would look at the full slate of candidates seeking GNSO
endorsement while what I thought Kristina suggested was that the Council
would first look at SG named alternates first and only if that was
unsuccessful would they look at the full slate of candidates seeking
GNSO endorsement.

	Chuck

	From: Rosette, Kristina [mailto:krosette at cov.com] 
	Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 10:17 PM
	To: William Drake; Gomes, Chuck
	Cc: GNSO Council List; Knobenw
	Subject: RE: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and
Amendments

	I hope I'm responding to the most recent message. If not, would
someone please forward it?  (All of my email rules have disappeared and
I now have thousands of messages in my in box.)

	The concern driving the proposed amendment is that the Council's
role has been greatly restricted in the restructuring and the initially
proposed mechanism goes beyond that role.  The greater specificity in
the process, the greater the certainty.  There was concern that the
Council would move directly to the broader applicant pool without
considering the SG additional candidates.

	To avoid any confusion about my proposed amendments (and it
appears there may be some), here's the step-by-step for the two
scenarios

	Scenario 1 (diversity goals met with SG nominees):  Council
receives 4 nominated (or whatever we're calling them) candidates (1 from
each SG), diversity goals are satisfied, so Council endorses all four
candidates. 

	Scenario 2 (diversity goals not met):

	Step1:  Council receives 4 nominated SG candidates (1 from each
SG), but diversity goals are not met.

	Step 2:  Council then considers the 6 additional candidates (2
SGs named 1, 2 SGs named 2) named by the SGs.  If consideration of these
additonal candidates results in a slate that meets diverseity goals,
Council endorses 4 candidates.  If not, see Step 3.

	Step 3:  Council then considers all remaining persons in the
applicant pool (e.g., all persons who submitted applications but weren't
nomiated by SGs or identified as "additional candidates).  The last
sentence in my number 4 was directed to this step.

	If my proposed amendments did not make that clear, please let me
at what step they weren't clear enough.

________________________________

		From: William Drake
[mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
		Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 11:30 AM
		To: Gomes, Chuck
		Cc: GNSO Council List; Rosette, Kristina; Knobenw
		Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process,
Motion, and Amendments

		Hi Chuck

		On Jun 13, 2010, at 4:48 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

			I personally support the motion as proposed
because I think the required threshold of 60% of each house for any
additional candidates provides more than enough protection to ensure SG
support.  That would require 5 affirmative votes for the CPH and 8
affirmative votes of the NCPH, so no SG could control the vote, not even
with the NCA vote.  With that protection, it seems problematic to add
more complexity to the process.

			At the same time, if there are those who cannot
support the original motion as is, I think I could support a
modification that would do the following:

			1.       If the Council decides to try to
improve the diversity of the pool of GNSO endorsed candidates, they
would first consider those alternate candidates proposed by the SGs, if
any. 

		Wouldn't we do this anyone as a matter of courtesy and
common sense without codifying it?  If there's a pool of 8 candidates
and SGs have come to internal agreement that they could support persons
x y and z, presumably their reps would indicate that when the
conversation begins and we'd commence talking about x y and z before
moving on to the five nobody had yet preferred.  Would anyone really say
well, your SG may like Ms. x but I refuse to talk about her and insist
we start with someone nobody's said they favor?

		(One flaw with this as Bill noted in our meeting last
week is that an SG could submit all remaining candidates as alternates.)

		After I said that, somewhat in jest, Kristina specified
in the amendment, "notify Council of one or two additional candidates
whom it could support, if available." 

		2.       If the Council is unable to approve any
additional candidates to improve diversity of the pool using only  SG
proposed alternates, then they could consider the entire set of
candidates requesting GNSO endorsement.

		3.       I would add one new wrinkle to this: SG's
should only propose alternates that are of a different geographical
location or gender than their primary candidate.  In fact this would
probably be a useful amendment to the original motion.

		I'd favor that, but not if it's tied to prohibiting the
Council from even considering people who were not so designated.

		What the IPC is proposing is that only applicants that
SGs have previously designated as acceptable back-ups could even be
considered by the Council for this purpose.

		[Gomes, Chuck]  I didn't understand it as this
restrictive.  I thought Kristina said that the SG alternatives would be
considered first; then if that didn't result in a successful resolution,
other candidates could be considered. 

		That's what you suggested as an alternative.  Kristina's
text says

			3.  Change third bullet of #2 to read:  Each
stakeholder group is encouraged to (a) identify in its internal
deliberations and (b) notify Council of one or two additional candidates
whom it could support, if available, in the event that the diversity
procedure outlined in item 4 below is utilized.  

			4.  Change the now-third sentence of point 4 to
read: If, however, the list does not meet the above mentioned diversity
objectives, the Council as a whole may choose to endorse up to two
additional candidates, from among those identified by the stakeholder
groups under item 2, who would help to give the list of GNSO nominees
the desired balance.  If consideration of these additional stakeholder
group-identified candidates does not meet the diversity objectives, the
Council may refer to the GNSO applicant pool to identify these
additional candidates.

		So anyone in the applicant pool who has not been
specifically endorsed for possible consideration could not be
considered.  

		Best,

		Bill

	***********************************************************
	William J. Drake
	Senior Associate
	Centre for International Governance
	Graduate Institute of International and
	 Development Studies
	Geneva, Switzerland
	william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
	www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html

	www.linkedin.com/in/williamjdrake
	***********************************************************

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