I would like to endorse that part of Avri's mail beginning with 'On the personal opinion side of the discussion'.

The days come and the years pass. For as long as I have caucused with the At-Large, I understand that most are unaware that there is a major difference between the ICANN Community and the public benefit corporation organized under the laws of the state of California labeled ICANN.

For as long as I have caucused with the At-Large and notwithstanding the At-Large proffer a member to be seated - some still think the At-Large is properly positioned to seat 2 members! - the plurality of the caucus yet struggle to understand that the fealty of board members is to ICANN, the public benefit corporation organised under the laws of the state of California and the corporate objectives, not the place from whence they come.

The most one can expect is that the socialisation of board members to baseline principles of the incubating community would sustain an approach to consensus at board level. And at any rate, ALAC as institutional home for the At-Large and empowered in bye-law can, if so desired, speak to the Board directly via its official advice.

In Avri's view ICANN, the corporation, has carved parts of their contracting to be outside the purview of consensus policy. I have a more nuanced - and likely - starker view. I am prepared only to acknowledge that consensus policy is merely a referential substrate for contracting, the letter and spirit of those policies purely tonal to that event. There was a time this was fiercely argued in face-to-face meetings with the Board and contracting parties we were cultivating for adopting our view.

I avoid vexations to my spirit by taking a very measured approach to some of these anxieties. Because I know fundamental understandings are missing from the equation.

Carlton

==============================
Carlton A Samuels
Mobile: 876-818-1799
Strategy, Process, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround
=============================

On Wed, 30 Oct 2024 at 18:17, avri--- via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> wrote:

Hi.

I am sorry I had to cut off discussion in the meeting today. As a co-chair, I felt that we were not going to achieve consensus for making a comment in that meeting, and we had a full agenda.

I do not, however, want to cut off discussion. ALAC can communicate its position by other means if we miss the comment deadline. As you say, this is a core subject in terms of our multistakeholder model, so if AL can reach consensus on the subject, it should communicate that to the board. I also agree that there is good reason in sending this in as a personal statement, perhaps with co-signers and endorsers after the fact.

<hat off>

On the personal opinion side of the discussion, I think that this issue, an issue that has been fiercely argued from time to time for 20 years, in one form or another, is based on a misunderstanding of the ICANN model and its scope. The following is a comment I just recently added to Michael's draft, that I decided to pass on to the list after having finished it.

I think the basic problem is that ICANN is not fully multistakeholder with regard to its contracting. By having carved off a section of the contracts as subject to consensus policy, the famous picket fence, it has excluded other parts of contracting from multistakeholder governance. This is not an issue we seem to recognize in the community. We keep insisting that the multistakeholder methods of governance should apply to all contracts in all their clauses, but the corporation insists that this is not the case, i.e. those aspects are not part of the ICANN multistakeholder bargain with the community.

There is of course, a slim tether to the multistakeholder community, in the fact that the Board selected by the multistakeholder community often, sometimes at least, has the last word on contracting. If the community cannot content itself with the partial multistakeholder model, then we have a different issue.

(i will pop this into an email to the CPWG list)

<hat on>

From a co-chair perspective, I will go with whatever the CPWG can agree to, either in time for the deadline or sometime after.

thanks

avri

On 2024-10-30 14:29, mike palage.com via CPWG wrote:

Hello All,

In advance of our CPWG call later today, I wanted to share a draft of the proposed ALAC statement, see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sk4dwR5_EGGj8vTwvtaxnfimgCQSkCFkxo0V142aGAQ/edit?tab=t.0

My apologies for not getting this out sooner, but I have been juggling several day job conflicts. However, the statement is only two pages, so it is rather concise and an easy read. Taking the feedback of Avri on the doom and gloom of “this represents a systemic threat to the ICANN multistakeholder model” I have toned that wording down to “undermines the multistakeholder” which I think is a reasonable compromise.

I look forward to answering any questions people may have on today’s call.

Best regards,

Michael

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