As you indicated, there really is no effective "conflict of interest" policy in ICANN, just a "statement of interest" policy; everything is fair game so long as you declare. Having *any* community CofI that required recusals and declarations at each meeting would be a step in the right direction; it would also decimate the GNSO as we now know it.

But the biggest conflict of all is ICANN's own. Its revenue derives almost completely from the volume of extant domains from which it derives rent. Thus any public-interest policy which might curtail that rent (such as measures against squatting or disposable domains, or a measured approach to TLD expansion) could be seen as detrimental to ICANN's sustainability; Board members, whose sole fiduciary duty is to ICANN itself, would be obliged to oppose any such potential for shrinkage.