Let's not forget that a major reason the Board cited "GPI" as an issue is that this is their self-declared yardstick, as set forth in the Board Resolution of 16 October 2014:
- If the Board believes it is not in the global public interest to implement a recommendation from the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability and Governance (CCWG Recommendation), it must initiate a dialogue with the CCWG. A determination that it is not in the global public interest to implement a CCWG Recommendation requires a 2/3 majority of the Board.
The Board did not choose to invoke GPI because, out of all the concepts in the world, this was the one that most perfectly encapsulated their concerns. The Board chose to invoke GPI because it needed to invoke GPI to foreshadow the process set forth in the Resolution. It was the required tool for the job.
It would be too cynical to say that it is otherwise meaningless. GPI is an important (if nebulous) concept. But, if the Resolution had said "If the Board believes it is not copacetic to implement a recommendation...." then the Board would have written in its comments that what we proposed was likely not copacetic.
Perhaps framing our rationales in terms of GPI is going to help, because it will demonstrate a difference between the CCWG's and the Board's concept of GPI. But at that point, I think it is likely to become entirely formalistic and even start to resemble a playground argument: "You say this ain't GPI -- I'll show you what I call GPI"! In reality, it will come down to discussing the concrete differences between positions -- not a "Quien es mas GPI?" contest.
Greg
P.S. This concern is separate and apart from my views on discussing and exploring ICANN and GPI in other fora, such as Nora Abusitta's effort. I'm all in favor of that. (Even there, I don't think there will be a Unified Definition of GPI, but rather a significant number of principles -- some interrelated, some dissonant -- which will need to be considered and balanced in any given analysis of GPI. My concern is that there will be efforts to elevate certain "public interests" over others, and resultant counterefforts necessitated by the first efforts, and we'll end up with a kind of circular tug of war (imagine a giant rope spiderweb, with each "team" hanging on to a different radius emanating from the center)).