Alan Greenberg wrote:
... Whether that means all directors actually agreed with the policy, or none felt that it was sufficiently dangerous that the Board should overrule the GNSO, I cannot say.
Well, a board of directors does and must reserve to itself the ultimate final word on things. A good board can, however, arrange things so that that authority needs to be used only rarely. There is a middle ground - A question whether to approve/deny a measure that comes before the board may be evaluated not on its merits but rather on whether the creation of that measure occurred using the rules and procedures that the board has defined. In other words, one way to define a well run organization is to measure whether the board delegates its powers to its executives with sufficient specificity of procedure that the board's main question is whether those executives (and their staff) have followed those procedures. If those procedures are followed the outcome is presumed valid (and subject to adoption by the board) unless there is a concrete showing that some ill events occurred. (Being trained as an attorney I'm kind of familiar with the nuances of presumptions, so I hope that I haven't totally confused everyone.) Unfortunately in ICANN everything bubbles up to the board in its full glory and the board has to expend the effort to make a full review. That's not very efficient. ICANN's board has been too weak to require that its executives and their staff adhere to processes onto which the board can endow a presumption of validity. It is hard being a good board member - which is why I support the creation of a fund to reimburse board members for certain expenses, such as the hiring of legal, financial, or technical advisors or support staff, or things like board-member websites, etc. (And no, I don't believe that the chairman deserves a larger fund - all board members have to work equally hard to fulfill their duties.) What this means for the at-large is that we, the public and community of internet users, need to find means to enhance the seating of board members who are willing to work to change ICANN so that it is better structured to serve the public interest, whether that be through better policymaking or by being a less expensive institution. My own answer to that has been to advocate more direct elections of board members. Others among us suggest other, perhaps more effective, approaches. The main point is that we are all in the same boat - we all want a better internet and a better ICANN that serves the interests of the internet public rather than the interests of a relatively few ICANN industrial "stakeholders". I'm sorry if I keep coming back to procedure over the substance of particular matters - it's just that I think that over the long run procedure tends to dictate what becomes substance. --karl--