Legal situation with respect to ALAC candidatures
Dear European colleagues: I have had a reply back from the Office of the General Counsel in respect of the two questions you asked me to take to them. With respect to the two questions: 1) Would Ms. Cretu's candidature be void because she didn't belong to an ALS in advance of the closing of the nominations period: It is arguable that a candidate should be a member of an ALS at the time they are nominated, but the Bylaws and MoU do not require that to be the case. As a consequence this fact does not void her candidature. 2) Would the fact that Ms. Cretu has been announced to be a member of the same ALS which Annette Muehlberg is a principal of void her candidature? Since Annette is the NomCom appointee, and the Bylaws and MoU govern only the diversity requirements of the two ALAC members to be chosen by the RALO, this fact does not void her candidature. A bit of elaboration is however in order, in respect of two points: 1) As you all know, the diversity requirements for all the officers was an important matter for many ALSes. They are also important to ICANN as a whole, else there would not be a diversity element to the ICANN Bylaws in respect of ALAC members. As a consequence, it is strongly recommended that Ms. Cretu join an ALS which is different from any other ALAC member, or ALAC candidate in this election, as that would clearly enhance the diversity of the ALAC members if she were to be elected. It was clearly not the intent of the diversity provisions that one ALS should have two ALAC members as members; this would not be in keeping with the spirit of these provisions. 2) All RALOs are encouraged very strongly to follow not just the letter of their MoUs and Operating Principles or Bylaws, and the ICANN bylaws as well, but their spirit too. This would include ensuring that those they nominate for elections are, at the time of their being nominated, clearly in compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the relevant MoUs, Bylaws/Operating Principles, and the like. This helps ensure that all elections are conducted entirely without any possible irregularity, or perception of irregularity, which only enhances the validity of elections and helps to avoid any external doubts about the result or the transparency and governance exhibited by the At-Large community. These points are provided not to point fingers at or criticise any person or organisation, but rather to encourage everyone to consult these documents carefully, to ensure that you understand them, so that problems like those we have just encountered can be avoided. No other region has had anything like as great a difficulty in choosing their initial officers as EURALO is having and has had so far. I strongly urge you all to ensure that henceforward no further problems arise - the ICANN world is watching, and I would hope everyone would want the wider world to look upon At-Large as a benchmark in how to work transparently and without irregularity or the need to consult external parties further in handling of their elections. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director, At-Large ICANN PO Box 32160 London N4 2XY United Kingdom Main Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011] USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135 mobile: +44 (7774) 932798 email: nick.ashton-hart@icann.org Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart
Thanks Nick. I think this demonstrates that the Euralo MoU and bylaws need clarifications, so that the letter is in line with the spirit. I think the spirit in requiring that an ALAC representative is a member of an ALS is that the candidate needs several months to get up to speed with the ALAC-specific business, both in content and process. This could be demonstrated by prior activity in ALAC and/or ICANN related mailing lists, meetings attendance, etc. Afterwards, if the ALS estimates the candidate meet these criteria, it can use whatever internal process it see fit to ratify the candidacy and propose it to the Euralo. My personal suggestion is that an ALAC candidate should be a member of an ALS for at least six months before the elections take place. It is obviously too late for this round, but let us avoid further possibilities for interpretation before the next round. Patrick
Good morning, having been on ICANN'n nomcom twice, I can confirm that several board members didn't meet the requirements you find necessary for an ALAC seat. The nomcom has appointed people who were plain and simple newbies. From what I know, nobody has ever complained about this fact. Now I wonder if the selection criteria for ALAC should be more rigorous than for the board and if so why? jeanette Patrick Vande Walle wrote:
Thanks Nick.
I think this demonstrates that the Euralo MoU and bylaws need clarifications, so that the letter is in line with the spirit.
I think the spirit in requiring that an ALAC representative is a member of an ALS is that the candidate needs several months to get up to speed with the ALAC-specific business, both in content and process. This could be demonstrated by prior activity in ALAC and/or ICANN related mailing lists, meetings attendance, etc. Afterwards, if the ALS estimates the candidate meet these criteria, it can use whatever internal process it see fit to ratify the candidacy and propose it to the Euralo.
My personal suggestion is that an ALAC candidate should be a member of an ALS for at least six months before the elections take place. It is obviously too late for this round, but let us avoid further possibilities for interpretation before the next round.
Patrick
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Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
having been on ICANN'n nomcom twice, I can confirm that several board members didn't meet the requirements you find necessary for an ALAC seat. The nomcom has appointed people who were plain and simple newbies. From what I know, nobody has ever complained about this fact. How could we complain ? The decision process inside the Nomcom is so secretive that the visibility of the community either on the process or the criteria being used is inexistent. There is no possibility to appeal, challenge the choices or vote on the slate of candidates. This is a major issue that should be addressed by the Nomcom review. I think complaints will surface. Now I wonder if the selection criteria for ALAC should be more rigorous than for the board and if so why? Certainly, we need a more transparent, less challengeable, process than the Nomcom.
Patrick
Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
having been on ICANN'n nomcom twice, I can confirm that several board members didn't meet the requirements you find necessary for an ALAC seat. The nomcom has appointed people who were plain and simple newbies. From what I know, nobody has ever complained about this fact. Now I wonder if the selection criteria for ALAC should be more rigorous than for the board and if so why?
I have already posted on this subject, but will repeat it. There are in ICANN two channels to get to "leadership positions", one is via NomCom, the other one via the internal structure. By design, these channels address two separate needs: for the organization to have a continuous intake of new people, who are qualified but do not belong to the internal structure (and therefore that may or may ot be experienced) and to have representative of the different constituencies, who are therefore necessarily familiar with the issues, in particular the ones debated within their constituencies. For the Board, this means that some members are appointed by NomCom, and are generally coming from outside the Supporting Organizations, and those may or may not be familiar with ICANN. On the other hand, some members are appointed by the Supporting Organizations, like GNSO, ASO and ccNSO, and those are definitively familiar with the issues, actually they are elected exactly for this reason. A quick check on the present and past SO-elected Board Directors will easily prove that. Similarly, for ALAC, NomCom selects 5 members, who may or may not be familiar with the issues, while the RALOs elect the other 10 among their ranks, and their role is exactly to bring the knowledge of the internal life and issues of the RALOs. Obviously, for all other bodies who have "leadership positions", like GNSO Council, ASO Council, ccNSO Council, it works exactly in the same way. I think it would be a good thing if we did not have to rediscuss the basic principles every time we hit a situation in which they do not work for our convenience. Cheers, Roberto
Dear colleagues, there is one remark, I would like to make. Am 09.05.2007 um 08:20 schrieb Nick Ashton-Hart:
1) As you all know, the diversity requirements for all the officers was an important matter for many ALSes. They are also important to ICANN as a whole, else there would not be a diversity element to the ICANN Bylaws in respect of ALAC members. As a consequence, it is strongly recommended that Ms. Cretu join an ALS which is different from any other ALAC member, or ALAC candidate in this election, as that would clearly enhance the diversity of the ALAC members if she were to be elected. It was clearly not the intent of the diversity provisions that one ALS should have two ALAC members as members; this would not be in keeping with the spirit of these provisions.
I fully agree that we should go for diversity - more, I'd like to stress it. In my opinion, the candidature of Veronica Cretu does not contradict diversity, but enhances it, as she represents groups not represented by the other candidate for ALAC. The more formal aspect of ALS-membership seems a less important point to me in this case. I appreciate that the open questions to the candidature are clarified now. Best Stefan -- Stefan Hügel (sh@fiff.de) FIfF - Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung e.V. Geschäftsstelle: Goetheplatz 4, D-28203 Bremen Telefon +49 421 33659255 - Fax +49 421 33659256 - http://www.fiff.de - fiff@fiff.de
Dear colleagues, My main concern with the diversity criteria as they are now is their (lack of) relevance to the work we are doing. Frankly, if diversity means discrimination against or in favour of candidates based on gender or origin, this does not smell good to me. We spent the half of the last century fighting for equal rights for all and this was reflected in many texts on human rights, be it the European convention or the Universal declaration. I don't find useful to reproduce our ancestors mistakes. Rather, since our work is related to IP address and DNS resource allocation, maybe we should use criteria based on the number of allocated IPv4 addresses, or the number of gTLD and ccTLD domains per capita. I guess these statistics would make the landscape look quite different, but at the same time maybe more representative of the Internet context in each country. Further, and this is a fundamental question: do the elected people need to reflect the view of the majority within the group, or do we have to have to have a system with protected minorities ? Some statistics your may find useful: gTLDs per country: http://www.webhosting.info/registries/country_stats/ ccTLD stats: http://www.ripe.net/info/stats/hostcount/hostcount++/earlystats/hc_vs_hcpp_0... Raw RIPE IP address delegation data: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/stats/delegated-ripencc-latest I am willing to spend some time trying to extract useful data from the above, if anyone finds it useful. If not, I'd rather find other ways to spend my time. Patrick Stefan Hügel wrote:
I fully agree that we should go for diversity - more, I'd like to stress it. In my opinion, the candidature of Veronica Cretu does not contradict diversity, but enhances it, as she represents groups not represented by the other candidate for ALAC. The more formal aspect of ALS-membership seems a less important point to me in this case.
My review agrees with the legal analysis provided by ICANN counsel. As an observer of the EU list, I take strong exception to the points of "elaboration," whomever they come from. The "spirit" of the agreements is obviously for the European at-large to determine among themselves. As part of the world watching, I'm far more reassured by debate and discussion that reflects public involvement than by smooth "progress." --Wendy Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
Dear European colleagues:
I have had a reply back from the Office of the General Counsel in respect of the two questions you asked me to take to them.
With respect to the two questions:
1) Would Ms. Cretu's candidature be void because she didn't belong to an ALS in advance of the closing of the nominations period:
It is arguable that a candidate should be a member of an ALS at the time they are nominated, but the Bylaws and MoU do not require that to be the case. As a consequence this fact does not void her candidature.
2) Would the fact that Ms. Cretu has been announced to be a member of the same ALS which Annette Muehlberg is a principal of void her candidature?
Since Annette is the NomCom appointee, and the Bylaws and MoU govern only the diversity requirements of the two ALAC members to be chosen by the RALO, this fact does not void her candidature.
A bit of elaboration is however in order, in respect of two points:
1) As you all know, the diversity requirements for all the officers was an important matter for many ALSes. They are also important to ICANN as a whole, else there would not be a diversity element to the ICANN Bylaws in respect of ALAC members. As a consequence, it is strongly recommended that Ms. Cretu join an ALS which is different from any other ALAC member, or ALAC candidate in this election, as that would clearly enhance the diversity of the ALAC members if she were to be elected. It was clearly not the intent of the diversity provisions that one ALS should have two ALAC members as members; this would not be in keeping with the spirit of these provisions.
2) All RALOs are encouraged very strongly to follow not just the letter of their MoUs and Operating Principles or Bylaws, and the ICANN bylaws as well, but their spirit too. This would include ensuring that those they nominate for elections are, at the time of their being nominated, clearly in compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the relevant MoUs, Bylaws/Operating Principles, and the like. This helps ensure that all elections are conducted entirely without any possible irregularity, or perception of irregularity, which only enhances the validity of elections and helps to avoid any external doubts about the result or the transparency and governance exhibited by the At-Large community.
These points are provided not to point fingers at or criticise any person or organisation, but rather to encourage everyone to consult these documents carefully, to ensure that you understand them, so that problems like those we have just encountered can be avoided. No other region has had anything like as great a difficulty in choosing their initial officers as EURALO is having and has had so far. I strongly urge you all to ensure that henceforward no further problems arise - the ICANN world is watching, and I would hope everyone would want the wider world to look upon At-Large as a benchmark in how to work transparently and without irregularity or the need to consult external parties further in handling of their elections.
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-- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org phone: +1.617.418.3456 / +44 (0)1865 287203 // cell: 07785 550361 Visiting Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/
participants (6)
-
Jeanette Hofmann -
Nick Ashton-Hart -
Patrick Vande Walle -
Roberto Gaetano -
Stefan Hügel -
Wendy Seltzer