Colleagues
I will not be able to join you in 30 minutes (I hear the screams of joy J) so let me make my position completely clear. The question is not the definition of consensus but the definition of when the Board must accept the GAC’s advice unless it can muster a 2/3rd vote to reject it. Today the answer to that question is “never” – there are no circumstances at all under which the Board is required to accept GAC advice over the objection of a majority of the Board.
The GAC wants more. And simply saying that defines the problem. It cannot have more. It cannot have more from the perspective of the private sector and it cannot, I strongly suspect, have more from the perspective of the US government (either the NTIA or Congress). There is no agreement – none – in this forum or in the CCWG more broadly for expanding the GAC’s role. The only source of such a push is the GAC itself.
Let me respond to Jorge’s attempt to paint this as changed circumstance. He is right, circumstances are changed --- but they are changed in ways that argue against the GAC, not for it. The most notable, of course, is that the NTIA contract is going away – the soft oversight that has prevented GAC overreach in the past. The other is that the GAC may very well join the Sole Designator (or whatever we are now calling it) as a voting member where it can block Designator oversight of the Board. So if we are talking about stress tests, here is the failure mode that would follow agreement to the less than full consensus proposal from Denmark:
n A super majority of the GAC forces through advice over the objections of, say, 5 nations including [INSERT YOUR COUNTRY HERE]
n 2/3rd of the Board minus 1 disapprove the advice, but it still goes into effect because 1/3rd plus 1 of the Board are in agreement and/or captured
n The Designator is unable to act to correct this error because the GAC is a voting member who blocks consensus there and weilds its influence to prevent action
n Result: A policy that a majority of the community and the majority of the Board disapprove of automatically goes into effect
I’ve been looking a bit at where the current UN definition of consensus (“absence of formal objection”) comes from. It seems to have originated with the Law of the Sea treaty as a way of defining how the international community would deal with the management of a global resource (the ocean). I am struck repeatedly that a vocal group of governments now want to reject the UN model for one that empowers governments more. It would seem to me that the UN model is one we should uphold.
Finally, like others who have spoken on this list (Registries, IPC, NCSG) so far I too have taken soundings – and they are uniformly against enhancing GAC power. It is, in my judgment the only thing that will derail the transition.
Brett’s proposal – that we give the 2/3rd vote hurdle to OP47/UN level full consensus --- in my mind goes too far. We should, as we have already proposed in the two prior reports, put UN consensus into the bylaw as a requirement for favored treatment of the GAC. Anything less than that will not have the support of the community and will not have the support it requires for the transition to succeed.
Paul
Paul Rosenzweig
paul.rosenzweig@redbranchconsulting.com
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From: Mathieu Weill [mailto:mathieu.weill@afnic.fr]
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2015 5:47 AM
To: s18@icann.org
Subject: [S18] Document for ST18 call Nov 20
Dear Colleagues,
During our last call we had discussed elaborating on the Denmark proposal. Since then, there has been significant exchange on the list, with interesting new arguments being developed.
To facilitate today’s call at 13UTC (planned for 90 minutes this time) you will find attached a document that focuses on proposed edits we have received on the Denmark proposal, as well as, on page 2 a short table summarizing the different options regarding the “staggered Board decision threshold” approaches.
We look forward to a fruitful call.
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Mathieu WEILL
AFNIC - directeur général
Tél: +33 1 39 30 83 06
mathieu.weill@afnic.fr
Twitter : @mathieuweill
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