GNSO Council
Position: GNSO Council

Number of Seats: 1
Start of Term: Conclusion of Annual Meeting 2008
End of Term: Conclusion of Annual Meeting 2010

The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) is a policy-development body responsible for developing and recommending to the ICANN Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains. The GNSO consists of various Constituencies representing defined groups of stakeholders and a GNSO Council, responsible for managing the policy development and administrative processes of the GNSO. The GNSO Constituencies choose the majority of the Council members; Nominating Committee chooses three Council members with staggered terms. The GNSO also includes a liaison from the ALAC and the Governmental Advisory Committee. Liaison activities from the ASO and ccNSO are under development.

GNSO Council Members receive no compensation for their services as GNSO Council Members. ICANN provides administrative and operational support necessary for the GNSO to carry out its responsibilities through the GNSO Secretariat. Most recently ICANN also provides staff support for policy development. As stated in the ICANN Bylaws, such support shall not include an obligation for ICANN to fund travel expenses incurred by GNSO participants for travel to any meeting of the GNSO or for any other purpose. However, ICANN has customarily furnished travel expenses for Nominating Committee appointed Council members to ICANN meetings. This custom is planned to continue, but is subject to the Bylaw statement. [Bylaws Article X, Section 4, see http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#X-4]

Nominating Committee will use the Criteria for Selection of ICANN Directors (see above) in choosing Selected Nominees for the GNSO Council. GNSO Council members are expected to support the ICANN mission and the implementation of ICANN's Core Values.

Role of the Nomcom Appointee.

As discussed above the majority of the councillors are appointed by the constituencies and represent those constituencies in the council.  Nomcom appointees, on the other hand, are not the representatives of any specific group, though they may choose to represent the interests of groups that are not currently represented in council.  Most importantly  Nomcom appointees should be people chosen, {often from outside the GNSO constituencies and sometime from outside ICANN,} who bring a fresh perspective into the council and who accept the responsibility to do their best to support ICANN in its mission and core values.  {Appointees should be people who can help the GNSO council to perform its duties; sometimes this may involve filling gaps in the skill set, at other times it may involve addressing a diversity or other demographic balance or may involve bringing a necessary perspective into the council that is not already present.  Generally an appointee needs to fulfill several of these needs at the same time.}

The Nominating Committee will also take into account the following eligibility factors and additional considerations.

GNSO Council Eligibility Factors

No person who serves on the Nominating Committee in any capacity is eligible for selection by any means to any position on the Board or any other ICANN body having one or more membership positions that the Nominating Committee is responsible for filling, until the conclusion of an ICANN annual meeting that coincides with, or is after, the conclusion of that person's service on the Nominating Committee. [Bylaws, Article VII, Section 8, see http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#VII-8]

No more than one officer, director, or employee of any particular corporation or other organization (including its subsidiaries and affiliates) shall serve on the GNSO Council at any given time. [Bylaws, Article X, Section 3(5), see http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#X-3.5]
Additional Considerations

For the GNSO Council position, specific experience related to the scope of the GNSO's work with the Domain Name System would be advantageous.

The current composition of the GNSO Council is available here http://gnso.icann.org/council/members.shtml

The Bylaws do not state a limit on the number of terms GNSO Council members may serve, although it is possible that term limites may be considered in future.

Time Commitment

The basic responsibilities of a GNSO Council member {involve a minimum} of 20 hours per month on Council related activities, with those chairing or participating in committees or task forces spending up to 60 hours a month or more.  {Depending on work load, for example during  the weeks before the 3 face to face meeting, this can sometimes escalate to as much as 20 hours per week or more.  The commitment for the 3 face to face meetings generally run about 7 days with council members having sometimes extensive responsibilities on most days. For those involved in Task forces or Working Groups, there may occasionally be additional face to face interim meetings} 

Task force members and councilors are not compensated for either time or teleconference costs though ICANN makes toll free numbers available whenever practical.

Additional GNSO criteria:

{There are various criteria that should be considered when judging GSNO candidates.  the first set of criteria are general and should be present in anyone appointed to the GNSO council, while the second set of criteria reflect a diversity of skills that may be necessary.  Depending on the composition of the sitting council, these skill based criteria will vary from year to year.  Criteria that are considered important for the 2008 appointment are marked.}

Baseline Criteria for anyone selected as a nomcom appointee:

- Demonstrated experience working effectively in collaborative environments involving diverse interests.
- Ability to chair {or otherwise assist} a multi-stakeholder group in  reaching consensus
- Basic of knowledge of DNS systems and industry structure - registries, registrars.  The goal is not to find technical DNS experts, but a minimal understanding of the DNS is needed to effectively function on the Council.  For example appointees should understand something along the lines of "do you know what happens in the DNS when you send an email, or access a webpage".  This requires an understanding of the general process of name resolution without requiring a precise technical description.

Variable Criteria that are useful to the GNSO.  

Part of the role of Nomcom appointees it fill in gaps in the skill set of the council.  Some, but not all, of the skills that are highly useful in the process of GNSO council work are listed below.   The gap skills will vary year by year. Criteria that are especially important for 2008 are marked

o  Knowledge of
      - International Law   (2008)
   - Competition law
   - Anti-trust law
  -  Public interest
   - Consumer rights
   - Human rights
   - Economics especially market analysis  (2008)
- Intergovernmental expertise  (2008)
- Understanding of the special needs of financial services businesses
- IDN expertise
- setting up of dispute and objection processes
- enforcement procedures and processes
- application software development - e.g multi-lingual support
- online collaborative work and} consensus building technologies - wiki's etc
- statistics and survey analysis
- project management and document control processes

Additionally consideration may be given to Nomcom appointees who can help with the geographical or gender balance on the council as needed, as long as other necessary attributes and skills are also present.