Mail by Jeanette Hofmann for the EURALO discuss list, forwarded by Staff. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Fwd: Re: [EURO-Discuss] alac review] Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:06:16 +0100 From: Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette@wzb.eu> To: Discussion for At-Large Europe <euro-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Hi, I agree with Heike. It would be good to have a statement that challenges the report on methodological grounds. A second part of a statement could list a few goals we would like to see achieved in the context of the JPA termination. jeanette Heike Jensen wrote:
Thanks for posting the notes, Bill, but is that really the latest version? I thought that you had reworked the text to make it more coherent? The below, I think, is hard to understand for people who were not present at the meeting.
A point that I would like to reiterate in terms of our approach to the review is that I think it would be important to distinguish between content (are they suggesting what we would like them to suggest?) and methodology (does their review make sense, and do they arrive at their conclusions in a logical manner?). I think our criticism is most credible when concerned with the latter. As for the former, I think we need to discuss whether we would like to reiterate our suggestions, but in any case they should be clearly set apart from our methodological critique.
Heike
----- Original Message ----- From: "William Drake" <william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch> To: "Discussion for At-Large Europe" <euro-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 11:00 AM Subject: Re: [EURO-Discuss] alac review
Hi,
On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 4:16 PM, Wolf Ludwig <wolf.ludwig@comunica-ch.net> wrote:
I agree with Vittorio that it would be much easier - especially for those who haven't been in Paris - to have some starting points already (otherwise it would habe been rather useless to sit together in Paris for almost two hours). We could use the "starting points" as a basis for further considerations and suggestions on the list.
Ok then, by popular demand, below are the notes I received on the initial discussion. I've left them in their raw state---there are some general cross-cutting points about overall thrust and balance and the target audience (believe we settled on the board wg) followed by issue-specific points grouped under the section headings of the draft summary report. Perhaps as a first step people could read the full draft report and then provide any comments using these headings for easy identification. After everything's on the table a few of us could form a drafting group to massage the inputs into an integrated text. I'll volunteer to be part of that group.
I suggest that afterwards we give about 10-14 days for discussion to come up with a consolidated and final EURALO Statement around 15 July.
Some time is needed between discussion/inputs and production of a statement, so unless there's some urgency relating to the board wg/Westlake production schedule I'd suggest we think in terms of the week of the 21st for the latter. If others will be in Meissen for Wolfgang's Internet governance summer school, we could even finalize in person. And of course the resulting text should be cleared through list before sending it off. In any event, since this will be Euralo's first substantive output we should ensure we get the process right and help set a foundation for future work.
Cheers,
Bill
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Express concerns: Staff several layers of indirectness Budget independence Positive, points we agree with What should have been looked at Giving some recommendations Individual memberships Participation of users Voting rights on supporting organizations (gnso) and board Surprise about statements the range is not wide ahistorical
Who to address: The Westlake group? The Board?
Process: Conflict of interests the very staff who is responsible
You did not examine the role of staff:
The procedure of the selection of the reviewer was not transparent.
Although the review was mandated by the bylaws, the date of reviewing was unlucky because it reviewed the interim alac.
1. The way the contract was done. 2. Allocation in management of the contract 3. Timing of the report (mandated by bylaws) 4. Relationship to staff dependency conflict of interests 5. Not everyone has been interviewed 6. Skope: Terms of reference
Assessment of key factors affecting alac s effectiveness: Staff, History, individual membership Constitutional question of role of alac At-Large structure participation Democratizing icann Budget Focus on the committee itself The skope is weak in terms analyzing of the relationship of the committee board and constituent membership at-large
Promote web Did they not get it by accident or did they not get it because they were instructed to not get it.
Introduction: Procedural points:
History of the ALAC starts in 1999. That means you cannot look at the ALAC without looking at the At-Large.
Purpose of alac The good part of the review is they mention accountability of icann Give representation of the users in icann Terms of reference
Structural options: The range of options considered where at some place excentric, and other options promoting the bottom up involvement of users (which make more sense were not mentioned.) They should be transparent about the options chosen from the data they collected. As it is clear that other options have been mentioned.
Geography: Positive, that they looked at the population and to find a way of good user´s representation. It would be adv Problem of pure numeric representation should be mentioned. Different cultures, languages, political structures. A very non-scientific approach. Methodologically unsophisticated. Resolution premature, and it would be best to take that issue up in icanns larger regional represantation. No reference had been made to former studies on geographic regional representation (sub-organisations).
Future developments of growing number of ALSes were not taken into account.
ALAC influence: Ok
Board liaison: Voting: We find that the logic is amusing/ flawed. If having a vote hampers consensus building on the board than all of the stakeholders should All board members should be treated equally A vote on the board While we understand the concern that giving a vote to a committee that might change its status of the ALAC this will not change the procedure of consensus building. The gac was offered voting rights, they did not want. (Later: maybe a clear statement: We would like to have it.)
The quote: "`to act in what [directors] reasonably believe ar the best interests of ICANN and not as.`"
Secondly we find the conclusion that giving alac a vote would dilute rather than increase its influence because of the duty to serve the interest of Icann Is based on a false dichotomy. Alac members are fully invested in ICANN's mission and tasks. There is no contradiction between serving ICANN's interests and representing At Large interests. We support the suggestion to allocate staff support on a regional basis. The effectiveness of staff support is more depend on quality than quantity. In addition, we have further observations. 1. The consultant should review the processes of appointing staff for ALAC and RALOs to see whether those processes are in line with the goal to create a supporting structure for ALAC and REALOS. 2. The consultant should look into the matter of budget allocation and particularly review the procedure of decision making to allocate the budget and investigate whether those structures allows ALAC and RALOs to fulfill their function.
Due to the late delivery of the report, there was no time to consult with all of our members. For this reason, we reserve the right to prepare further statements in the next few days.
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