ATRT2, Buenos Aires, Day 1

{notes and comments by Carlos Raul Gutierrez}

On the “Audit” function

I will comment on the Audit paper directly, if I can find it

SSAC

Financial support is an issue.

My comments {CRG}: It is my strong feeling, that all FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO SO/ACs should be bundled together in one single chapter of the report. It certainly would make our report more attractive reading! In any case it would be a very good selling point for ICANN to show how much ($$$) goes into SO/AC’s support. On top of that, since some SO/ACs think negatively about ICANN financial support (i.e. the “independence” of GACs secretariat, ICANN should consider a different procedure for budgeting this support, so as to shift more responsibility to the budgeting side to SO/ACs themselves, and audit later their expenses.

RSAC

{Could not participate}

BOARD

First of all: please check for IMPLEMENTABILITY

#1 On the target: the individual  Board members vs. the Board as a whole

• if individual => NomCom issue. Should be clearly separated
• if the Board as a whole => focus on effectiveness (committee composition) and quality of the resolutions, and not on the individuals

#2 On reconsideration

We have not digged enough into the reconsideration field as part of the quality of the resolutions. But maybe it is too late for this team. In any case I want to share my comments {CRG}: If the reconsideration is on Staff action or inaction, it is very dangerous to rely on staff for the rationale of the decision. In those cases at least, the BGC should rely on external legal counsel. in case there is no unanimous consent within the BGC, the they should go and ask the Board as a whole.

#3 On the GAC

“9.1. (b) assessing the role and effectiveness of the GAC and its interaction with the Board..” 

We have discussed internally to whom we should address our recommendations in this case (BOARD and/or GAC directly) and it seems that we still have divergent opinions, both in our team as well as on the Board’s side. This may kill implementability outright making the report inoperative.

My comments {CRG}: For the sake of implementability, all recommendations should be thoroughly checked: (a) if it most probably requires a revision of By-Laws (like asking for a practical recommendation on how “engage earlier” in the PDP process, badly missed by ATRT1. Also for our Cross community recomendation) => address recommendation to the Board, (b) if it requires revision of Operating Principles (like code of conduct) => address recommendation to the GAC directly, (c) if it requires a change of the status-quo (like the very important condition to look for the GLOBAL Public Interest, instead to bring in Chauvinistic positions into the GAC, like .wine and .vin) => address recommendation to the Governments directly. YES! And maybe go as far as to recommend Board to consider to invite GAC membership TO Co-SIGN THE AoC!!!!! (very personal opinion of Carlos Raul Gutierrez, that could solve many underlying issues with GAC)