Some years ago I made a presentation to a local community planning board about the .nyc TLD, concluding with a request that the board approve a resolution recommending that the city move ahead with an acquisition process. One the board members commented, "We can't vote on this until we hear what the Borough President wants us to do." Now the purpose of the community boards was to provide the Borough President, City Council, and Mayor with bottom-up guidance on those things of interest - or not - to local residents. That was their role. That's why the boards existed. If we look closely into the root governance question, and after due consideration the At-Large decides that some newfangled treaty organization should be created, and the recommendation is rejected, or ignored, or even scoffed at, by the majority, we'll have fulfilled our duty. Alternately, the At-Large might conclude that it's not an appropriate approach. Or it might succeed. That said, I realize that after the Herculean task of dealing with the IANA question there might be reluctance to take on another. Especially one that seems, at first look, to be quite challenging . But I think we should give a hard look at the merits and then decide if we should take it on. Let's not make our decisions based on likelihood of success. Best, Tom Lowenhaupt On 4/9/2016 5:52 PM, Alan Greenberg wrote:

So, as I understand things, we want to convince the governments of the world to enter into a new treaty where there does not seem to be a huge amount of current interest. But not a regular treaty, but one in which governments sign onto it, but cede much of their power to civil society, academics, the technical community and business. Oh yes, and End Users, a rather undefined term in their context.

I'm really good at putting large efforts into difficult projects, because there is merit in their success, but this one sounds just a bit (ok, a lot) too "iffy" for my comfort.

Alan

At 09/04/2016 04:18 PM, Maureen Hilyard wrote:

...

Olivier,

I got from Thomas's email that he proposes that we go outside of current norms and create a multistakeholder treaty model that incorporates all our stakeholder groups. Of course it doesn't exist now but we are in a transition phase so perhaps its timely.

Maureen

On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 9:57 AM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com <mailto:ocl@gih.com>> wrote:

Dear Thomas,

On 09/04/2016 20:51, Thomas Lowenhaupt wrote: > > Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't Parminder's thought > bottom-up, and in-line with the multi-stakeholder concept? (And I see > some merit in his concerns about gTLD governance.)

The Treaty Model which Parminder argues for requires signature from UN Member States. http://www.un.org/en/member-states/ <http://www.un.org/en/member-states/>

Where is Civil Society? Where are End Users? Where are the Technical & Academic Communities? Where is the Private Sector?

Kindest regards,

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