[council] Enhancing ICANN Accountability | ICANN - Proposed Next Steps for the Process

[Tony Holmes]

I have to support John here. Any expectation by ICANN staff or from Fadi, that Jonathan or anyone else as chair of the Council can speak for all of the GNSO on any, issue needs to be nailed. It’s not a practical proposition, neither is it fair on those individuals who sit in the hot seat. However I have little doubt that if we don’t continually strive to make that abundantly clear, it’ll be used as a fast track route for progressing contentious issues when it suits. 

 

This does not imply any criticism, I’m  aware that Jonathan in particular has often gone out of his way to state that he’s not empowered to speak for the GNSO on a variety of issues. It also underlines the lack of appreciation of how different and diverse the GNSO is compared with most other SO’s. That’s something we need to work hard to change at every opportunity.

 

Tony

 

From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of john at crediblecontext.com
Sent: 29 May 2014 16:40
To: Avri Doria; council at gnso.icann.org
Subject: RE: Re: [council] Enhancing ICANN Accountability | ICANN - Proposed Next Steps for the Process

 

Avri,

 

Now it is a party.  With regard to your point, there is "far less support for, or agreement on, a bottom-up model" from whom?  The BC strongly supports the concept, despite its difference from the more normal top-down process in most corporations.

 

As for Jonathan, he is elected the chair of the GNSO Council and, perhaps, as the titular head of the GNSO in full, the increased use of him by the staff and CEO to stand as the actual head of the entire GNSO is a point of irritation for many.

 

If I were Fadi, I'd want to do the same thing.  It makes life neater and makes decisions more easily reached.  But that is not the way we have and ought to work.

 

My view.

 

Berard

 

--------- Original Message --------- 

Subject: Re: [council] Enhancing ICANN Accountability | ICANN - Proposed Next Steps for the Process
From: "Avri Doria" <avri at acm.org>
Date: 5/29/14 8:14 am
To: council at gnso.icann.org


Hi,

On 29-May-14 10:55, john at crediblecontext.com wrote:
> By setting the agenda on a question of "4 or 5" we miss the larger point
> of empowering the muilti-stakeholder, consensus-driven, bottom-up
> process. If that is too messy a place for the IANA contract to reside
> (which, I think, is Fadi's goal in all of this), then so be it.
> 


I think that while there is support for a multistakeholder process,
there is far less support for, or agreement on, a bottom-up model.

I believe senior management has more a representative model in mind.
For example according to the by-laws, we elect Jonathan as the chair of
the GNSO, he therefore speaks for the GNSO when he wears his Chair of
the GNSO hat. Obviously he can't be the spokesperson in everything, so
then the GNSO council should be able elect someone else to be the
representative for the issue under discussion. On the case of the IANA
committee, it is believed, we should be able to elect 2 people to
represent us.

That is, they expect us to be able to elect representatives.

On the other had, we have varying degrees of trust of elected
representatives. Some want to keep the power as close to the bottom as
they can, which is incompatible with entrusting representatives, and
they want to bring every issue back to vox populi.

Both the representative model and the 'check with the people before very
decision' model are multistakeholder, and both can even be described as
bottom-up, but one is a lot more bottom-up than the other.

The problem with comparative body count for the committees, is they are
offering a representative model whereas many in GNSO seem to want a more
of an ambassadorial model where the 'ambassador' to the group from each
SG has to be in constant contact with her capital before she can speak.

avri

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