GNSO Council resolution 9 July 2009
Dear Councillors, Ahead of the formal meeting minutes, the GNSO Council, at its meeting on Thursday, 9 July 2009 passed the resolution noted below. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Kind regards Glen By-Law Changes Motion proposed by Avri Doria and seconded by Chuck Gomes Whereas On 28 August 2008 the ICANN Board of Directors approved the BGC plan to restructuring of the GNSO; and http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/minutes-28aug08.htm On 27 March 2009 the ICANN Policy Staff introduced a draft of proposed by-law changes related to the restructuring of the GNSO; and http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/icann-bylaws-changes-re-gnso-27mar09.pdf Subsequent to receiving the changes suggested by the ICANN Policy Staff, the GNSO Council decided to create a Committee of the Whole to work on a proposed set of changes to the By-laws which committee was open to council members as well as substitutes from the constituencies and to representatives of applicant constituencies; and On 8 June 2009 the Structural Improvements Committee of the Board Directors gave a set of clarification to questions posed by the GNSO Committee of the Whole; and http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/transcript-restructure-08jun09.pdf On 12 June 2009, the ICANN legal counsel gave a set of recommend edits to the GNSO Committee of the whole. http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/by-laws-legal-12jun09.pdf Resolved The GNSO recommends to the ICANN Board of Directors that the By-laws related to the GNSO council be amended to read as documented in: http://www.icann.org/en/general/proposed-gnso-council-bylaws-amendment-clean... The Motion passed. 12 Votes in favour: Adrian Kinderis, Tim Ruiz (Registrar constituency), Jordi Iparraguirre, Edmon Chung, Chuck Gomes (gTLD Registries constituency) (two votes each) Avri Doria, Olga Cavalli (Nominating Committee Appointees)(one vote each) 3 Abstentions: William Drake, Carlos Souza (Non-Commercial Users Constituency), Kristina Rosette (Intellectual Property Constituency). 1 Vote against: Cyril Chua (Intellectual Property Constituency). Absent Council members: Philip Sheppard, Mike Rodenbaugh, Zahid Jamil (Commercial and Business Users Constituency), Ute Decker (Intellectual Property Constituency), Tony Holmes, Tony Harris, Greg Ruth (Internet Service and Connectivity Providers Constituency), Mary Wong (Non-Commercial Users Constituency), Terry Davis (Nominating Committee Appointees), Stéphane van Gelder (Registrar constituency). Kristina Rosette: Reason for abstention: It is inappropriate for there to be a vote on the by-laws until we have a resolution of the allocation of Board seats 13 and 14 as well as the absence of language pertaining to the temporary transitional allocation of the six seats in the NCSG. Bill Drake: Reason for abstention Reason for abstention: I abstain because the document is not done and we are waiting for clarification of some closely linked issues that will affect our participation in the new GNSO Carlos Souza: Reason for abstaining: I understand that the wording regarding the NCSG seats have been changed and we do not have the blank space at the end of the clause as it was presented in Sydney. However, there are some issues that require further input and the document as today is still incomplete on that regard. Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org
Hello All, I see that the latest bylaw suggestions deal with voting on major issues by those absent from a meeting. This is a good improvement. Has any consideration been given to situations of conflicts of interest? I can recall in the past several instances where a Council member handed over a proxy to another Council member without voting instructions where they felt there was a conflict of interest. For example, at one point the GNSO Council (or it might have been the DNSO Names Council at the time) voted to recommend a set of criteria for the rebid of .net. Most of the Council members that could be involved in a potential bid for .net abstained (including myself at the time) and handed their proxies to vote as he saw fit to Alick Wilson at the time (who was a nominating committee appointee). I haven't seen an example recently where a Council member has abstained from voting due to conflict of interest - but I think it is worth considering the process around that. Otherwise a Council member may feel obligated to vote on instructions from their constituency even where they may have a personal conflict of interest. Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Bruce, I agree with you that we should consider additional special situations with regard to voting, but we will probably have to deal with them after we get finished with the huge current workload. Regarding your last point, don't you think that a Councilor who is voting per the instructions of his/her constituency should be able to vote even if he/she may have a personal conflict of interest? It doesn't seem to me that a constituency (or in the future a stakeholder group) should lose a vote because their elected councilor has a personal conflict of interest. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:05 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: [council] Regarding voting rules for conflict of interest - proxies
Hello All,
I see that the latest bylaw suggestions deal with voting on major issues by those absent from a meeting. This is a good improvement.
Has any consideration been given to situations of conflicts of interest?
I can recall in the past several instances where a Council member handed over a proxy to another Council member without voting instructions where they felt there was a conflict of interest.
For example, at one point the GNSO Council (or it might have been the DNSO Names Council at the time) voted to recommend a set of criteria for the rebid of .net. Most of the Council members that could be involved in a potential bid for .net abstained (including myself at the time) and handed their proxies to vote as he saw fit to Alick Wilson at the time (who was a nominating committee appointee).
I haven't seen an example recently where a Council member has abstained from voting due to conflict of interest - but I think it is worth considering the process around that. Otherwise a Council member may feel obligated to vote on instructions from their constituency even where they may have a personal conflict of interest.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Hello Chuck,
I agree with you that we should consider additional special situations with regard to voting, but we will probably have to deal with them after we get finished with the huge current workload.
Sounds fair to me - just thought I would mention it, while we are considering voting rules.
It doesn't seem to me that a constituency (or in the future a stakeholder group) should lose a vote because their elected councilor has a personal conflict of interest.
Agreed. But at the same time I do think the issue of personal conflicts of interest need to be taken into account. So I think a mechanism that allows a constituency to retain their votes, but prevents an individual from being put in a difficult situation is worthwhile. Another example in the past is how to handle elections to the Board, where a candidate is a sitting Council member. There has been a mechanism used in the past where the constituency can appoint a person to vote on behalf of the constituency, in place of the Council member. Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Hi Bruce, Both you and Chuck make interesting points. Especially in the light of recent discussions we've had in the Council about how Councillors can best represent the views of their constituencies. There's no doubt that if a constituency instructs its Councillors to vote a certain way on a certain issue, said Councillors will be put in a very difficult situation if they have a conflict of interest on that issue. One (easy?) way to resolve this might simply be for Councillors to state that they are voting as instructed by the constituency and not as a reflection of their own personal views. This could then be recording in the vote summary that goes to the Board for instance, or in the transcript that is made publicly available. However, I see several problems. The first one is that Councillors are generally assumed to vote for their constituencies anyway, so why stress that fact again? And what if a Councillor then votes without stating the above, either because he forgets to, or because he doesn't have clear instructions from his Constituency? Would people naturally assume his vote is a reflection of his own personal views and accuse him or her of putting those first? It's a difficult one. Stéphane Le 15/07/09 06:01, « Bruce Tonkin » <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au> a écrit :
Hello Chuck,
I agree with you that we should consider additional special situations with regard to voting, but we will probably have to deal with them after we get finished with the huge current workload.
Sounds fair to me - just thought I would mention it, while we are considering voting rules.
It doesn't seem to me that a constituency (or in the future a stakeholder group) should lose a vote because their elected councilor has a personal conflict of interest.
Agreed. But at the same time I do think the issue of personal conflicts of interest need to be taken into account. So I think a mechanism that allows a constituency to retain their votes, but prevents an individual from being put in a difficult situation is worthwhile.
Another example in the past is how to handle elections to the Board, where a candidate is a sitting Council member. There has been a mechanism used in the past where the constituency can appoint a person to vote on behalf of the constituency, in place of the Council member.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
Stephane, The problems you describe need to be dealt with but I believe it is possible to do so in an effective and transparent manner. In other words, I think they are solvable. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Stéphane Van Gelder Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:40 AM To: Bruce Tonkin; Council GNSO Subject: Re: [council] Regarding voting rules for conflict of interest - proxies
Hi Bruce,
Both you and Chuck make interesting points. Especially in the light of recent discussions we've had in the Council about how Councillors can best represent the views of their constituencies. There's no doubt that if a constituency instructs its Councillors to vote a certain way on a certain issue, said Councillors will be put in a very difficult situation if they have a conflict of interest on that issue.
One (easy?) way to resolve this might simply be for Councillors to state that they are voting as instructed by the constituency and not as a reflection of their own personal views. This could then be recording in the vote summary that goes to the Board for instance, or in the transcript that is made publicly available.
However, I see several problems. The first one is that Councillors are generally assumed to vote for their constituencies anyway, so why stress that fact again? And what if a Councillor then votes without stating the above, either because he forgets to, or because he doesn't have clear instructions from his Constituency? Would people naturally assume his vote is a reflection of his own personal views and accuse him or her of putting those first?
It's a difficult one.
Stéphane
Le 15/07/09 06:01, « Bruce Tonkin » <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au> a écrit :
Hello Chuck,
I agree with you that we should consider additional special situations with regard to voting, but we will probably
with them after we get finished with the huge current workload.
Sounds fair to me - just thought I would mention it, while we are considering voting rules.
It doesn't seem to me that a constituency (or in the future a stakeholder group) should lose a vote because their elected councilor has a personal conflict of interest.
Agreed. But at the same time I do think the issue of personal conflicts of interest need to be taken into account. So I think a mechanism that allows a constituency to retain their votes, but prevents an individual from being put in a difficult situation is worthwhile.
Another example in the past is how to handle elections to
have to deal the Board,
where a candidate is a sitting Council member. There has been a mechanism used in the past where the constituency can appoint a person to vote on behalf of the constituency, in place of the Council member.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin
I agree that it is an issue that should be addressed when the current workload abates. I think it's important that we consider this from an another angle, namely, avoiding the appearance of impropriety. The appearance - or perception of the appearance - of impropriety can be just as damaging as the actual existence of impropriety. From a conflicts perspective, it seems to me that allowing a Councilor who has a conflict to vote, albeit not in a personal capacity, can certainly create the appearance of impropriety - here, a conflict. It's certainly possible that some could attribute that perception not only to the Councilor, but also to her/his constituency and the Council itself. I think Bruce's suggestion of a mechanism for temporary appointments of councilors is a good one. It certainly would address the appearance of impropriety issue. K -----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:01 AM To: Council GNSO Subject: RE: [council] Regarding voting rules for conflict of interest - proxies Hello Chuck,
I agree with you that we should consider additional special situations
with regard to voting, but we will probably have to deal with them after we get finished with the huge current workload.
Sounds fair to me - just thought I would mention it, while we are considering voting rules.
It doesn't seem to me that a constituency (or in the future a stakeholder group) should lose a vote because their elected councilor has a personal conflict of interest.
Agreed. But at the same time I do think the issue of personal conflicts of interest need to be taken into account. So I think a mechanism that allows a constituency to retain their votes, but prevents an individual from being put in a difficult situation is worthwhile. Another example in the past is how to handle elections to the Board, where a candidate is a sitting Council member. There has been a mechanism used in the past where the constituency can appoint a person to vote on behalf of the constituency, in place of the Council member. Regards, Bruce Tonkin
participants (5)
-
Bruce Tonkin -
Glen de Saint Géry -
Gomes, Chuck -
Rosette, Kristina -
Stéphane Van Gelder