Agreed. I think there are other clarifying questions that we should ask
as well. One I have is in regards to the selection of Councilors from the
stakeholder groups. There are differing views as what is meant.
One interpretation is that each of the stakeholder groups will
individually select four Councilors from among their respective
group. The other intrepretation is that the supplier stakeholder
groups would together select eight councilors, four from each group. The
user stakeholder groups would do the same. It is a subtle but important
difference.
Of course the other possibility is that the BGC WG intended us to figure
out how that would work.
I think any clarifying questions of this nature are necessary prior to
forming a Council response to the report.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [council]
AWOL and the reform proposals
From: "Gomes, Chuck"
<cgomes@verisign.com>
Date: Fri, November 02, 2007 11:24 am
To:
"Avri Doria" <avri@psg.com>, "Council
GNSO"
<council@gnso.icann.org>
Avri,
I did not assume such a restrictive role for the
Council under the proposed improvements, i.e., " the Council only being responsible for process
management". I assumed that the Council's responsibilities
would include policy management in a broader sense than just process
management although I think the two areas are hard to differentiate in some
cases. I fully agree with you that the policy items you identified
should be the responsibility of the Council under the proposed model and
would add to your examples the following: ensuring that policy development
work complies with Bylaws restrictions defining consensus policy development
(a change recommended in the recommendations) or, if the work does not apply
as possible consensus policy development, making that clear to the working
group in advance and throughout th! e process as needed.
When I made my public comments in the GNSO Improvements
Workshop on Monday, I made them with the above assumption. That is why
I thought that there would still be good motivation to participate on the
Council. If in fact, the BGC WG intended the more restrictive role of
the Council as you concluded, then I would have more empathy for the
concern about attracting qualified participants to the
Council.
It seems to me that it would be very good if you, as
chair, seek clarification from the BGC WG in this regard so that we
know whether or not there is a concern here that we should address or
not.
Chuck Gomes
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Hi,
I sent the following in to the gnso-improvements list during the
meeting on Monday.
a.
----
To the members of the committee:
First I thank the working group for its efforts
and find myself in agreement with much of the report.
While I agree that the GNSO Council should not be
a legislative body, I am concerned about scope in your definition of
"management." The report seems rather explicit in defining management
solely as responsibility for process. I think that the notion of
management needs to be expanded to include responsibility for Policy
management.
I think the idea of the Council only being
responsible for process management is too limited. And while I accept the
arguments that this will make recruitment much more difficult, not only
among constituencies and stakeholder group, but within the Nomcom process,
I think that this is the lesser of the problems with this approach.
I support the idea of Working Groups, despite the
challenge involved in creating working groups that are of sufficiently
diverse and of manageable size. I think that the Council needs to remain
responsible for the policy activities and output of the working groups.
Not only do I think that councillors should be chosen as stewards for
these Working Groups, but I believe that the Council should have a role in
determining whether the policy recommendations are compatible with ICANN
mission and core value and other policy recommendations. Beyond this there
is a need to make sure that the various policy recommendation are not seen
individually but are seen in the light of other policy processes and
efforts. This does not mean that the council should be able to reject the
work of a working group because it disagrees with the conclusions. It does
mean that the council should be able to return policy recommendations to
the working group with policy issues an! d concerns that it believes are
not adequately dealt with.
I agree with the comment that Thomas Narten made,
it is critical for the council to have a voice in deciding whether the
policy recommendations of a working group are good for the Internet
community. To me, this means that the council must retain a policy
management role.
Avri
On 2 nov 2007, at 06.59, Philip Sheppard wrote:
Fellow
Council members,
many
apologies for missing the meetings in LA this week but alas my duties as
IPRA president intervened.
And I was
flying during our voting meeting so could not dial-in without
bankrupting the BC.
Anyway, it
seems that some good progress was made on many issues (though I note not
on the politically sensitive issue of IGOs).
GNSO
reform
The reform
proposals pose some fundamental challenges to the heritage we guard
known as the bottom-up process.
While we may
differ in outcomes with respect to constituency boundary changes, it may
be productive to have debate on some of the wider issues of the reform
proposals.
In
particular it would be good to know fellow Council members views on the
objective that Council should manage the PDP but not decide (if I may
paraphrase).
This
objective is separate to its implementation (eg work groups ) for which
I see little need to debate as we do them anyway when we believe they
are right to do.
But I am
concerned that the objective may weaken Council by diminishing the
incentive for participation.
It would be
good to learn of opinions on this.
Philip