[msipanel] Personal Comments on Proposal 9 from Chuck Gomes

[Gomes, Chuck]

Note that the following comments essentially duplicate the comments I submitted on line at the GOVLAB site.  Also note that they are my personal comments and do not necessarily represent my company or the Registries Stakeholder Group.
Chuck Gomes
The panel makes an interesting statement: “Experts note that “the bottom-line principle when implementing the practice of rotation must be that if a competent citizen wishes to serve his organization, he should have a chance to do so.””  A key word here is ‘competent’; in my opinion competency would need to be defined relative to the needs of the ICANN organization involved.  Also does mean that every ‘competent individual’ should eventually be able to serve on the Board? That seems like a stretch considering how many ‘competent’ individuals there are in our global environment. A similar argument could be made for all ICANN organizations.
The panel says, “Experimenting with rotating term limits could help to address some of these critiques – whether real or perceived – that the Board is not a mirror of the community as much as a distinct bureaucracy that doesn’t fully leverage the power of the global community as well as it could.”  To accomplish this at the Board level would of course require major changes to the Bylaws, the biggest one possibly being to add a requirement that Board members serve as representatives of different sectors of the community instead of serving the corporation.  In contrast, other organizations such as the SOs are designed to be more representative already.
Below are some of the potential advantages of rotating term limits that the panel lists with my comments following:

·         “Increase “voter choice” and the diversity of the candidate pool” – A common reality in ICANN SOs and ACs is the difficulty of finding candidates. It is possible that rotating term limits could exasperate this problem rather than help it.

·         “Increase the level of “learning and on-the-job experience” throughout the ICANN community” – On-the-job experience might be more appropriately gained in working groups rather than in leadership positions.

·         “Avoid entrenched, incumbent bureaucracy” – This is one of the clear benefits of rotating term limits.  Within ICANN, Board term limits tend to be the most liberal, 3 terms at 3 years each.  In contrast, the GNSO Council has 2 terms at 2 years each.

·         “Prevent possibility of “long-term incumbents abusing power or gaining extraordinary financial or political power in office.” – This is just one example of many where it seems that the panel members do not understand very much about ICANN.  It might be possible for incumbents in some cases to abuse power although it doesn’t seem very likely.  I don’t think there is any way to gain financial power or political power.
In discussing implementation of this proposal as well as in the proposal description in its entirety, it is not clear that the panel is aware that rotating term limits are in place for most ICANN organizations. Does the panel think that they are insufficient?  If so, how should they be changed?
The panel says: “Rotating term limits are likely more appropriate in those “gate-keeper roles” within ICANN where votes are cast, as opposed to where individuals contribute insights, expertise or perform facilitative functions.”  Would this conclusion be the same in cases like the GNSO Council where votes are cast as directed by constituencies and stakeholder groups?
The panel rightfully recognizes that “membership continuity has merit in order “to preserve a presence of ICANN’s organizational knowledge in its decision-making processes.”
The panel lists some very good questions that would need to be asked when evaluating this proposal for implementation in ICANN:
·         “What institutional or cultural barriers may pose challenges to implementing this proposal?

  *   Should rotating term limits apply to ICANN’s consensus-based working groups? Why or why not?
  *   What is the appropriate term limit for which positions within ICANN? Would it be appropriate for ICANN to run controlled experiments to determine which make-up works best for which group or structure?
  *   How could ICANN assess the successes and shortcomings of those voting bodies that embrace some form of term limits at present in order to design the most effective pilot?”
It is not at all clear to me that the panel members understood enough about ICANN when making this proposal.  They make the case for the value of rotating term limits in a general sense but do not evaluate the ways in which rotating term limits are already implemented in ICANN organizations nor do they identify ways in which those implementations are unsatisfactory.

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