Thank you for the reminder. These comments of mine are included in the Draft Collaborative document.
The California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law ("CNPBCL") under which ICANN is chartered has no specific definition or requirement for Committees to be ”balanced” or “diverse”. Sec. 5212 only sets minimum majority requirements for appointment of Committee members which may be superseded by the charter or bylaws. Article 1 of ICANN By-laws in turn lists as one of its core values guiding its actions “(vii) Striving to achieve a reasonable balance between the interests of different stakeholders, while also avoiding capture”. In a corporation the best indicator of balance is that provided by numerical power of its shareholders or contributors, with a public benefit entity my opinion of balance is moot because each stakeholder will have their own concept of balance.
If the NomCom is to be rebalanced - the concept of balance inevitably always being subjective - the number of members should be odd instead of even to avoid the occasional tie. Balance should be achieved by “balanced for diversity (including functional, geographic and cultural) AND SKILL” (as the ICANN Bylaws demands for several of its organizations). Granting voting rights to NomCom non-voting is among the changes proposed in the Bylaws Amendments and Documents to Implement the NomCom2 Review subject to Public Comments.
Rebalancing for the sake of rebalancing creates a distraction from the main purpose of NomCom - which incoming delegates already undergo a 6-month training period to ensure their understanding of the mandates from ICANN constituencies. An assessment of balance may be carried out every 5 or 6 years (depending on whether the 1 or 2-year terms are maintained or implemented, respectively), or earlier if more than 1 of the Supporting Organizations (SO) or Advisory Committees (AC) requests so.
In the case of geographical community groups, LACRALO has internal criteria by subregion. However, mentoring and capacity-building initiatives should be started to increase cultural, linguistic and gender diversity rather than try to legislate a priori a diversity which will always be subjective.
These opinions represent my own and not necessarily those of any Committee or association I am a member of.
