<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default">Internal dispute resolution offices are influenced and affected by financial incentives and their independence and effectiveness are at stake when the design of their establishment is influenced internally. It happens specifically in employment disputes when companies have a large say in designing the procedure as well as deciding on who can be the mediator/arbitrator. Moreover, having only one person or even two people to resolve disputes creates prior judgement, forms opinions about the community members characteristics and many more shortfalls that hamper the independence of the office. ICANN org, decides on hiring an Ombuds person. Until now the office has not had a clear and well structure procedural rules in conducting itself. Professional dispute resolution offices (and remember they don't have to be law firms/ nor have to be arbitration centers) have well established, transparent procedures and damage to their reputation is costly. </div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"> Organizations might want to keep their clients but they have less incentives to do so than an internal office because, ICANN won't be their only source of revenue but ICANN is the only source of revenue of an internal office.</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">If you have a complaint against an ombuds person, or you think ombuds person did not resolve the matter well, who do you go to? At the moment either no one or ICANN org, ICANN org can't change ombuds on the spot or for future complaints but an organization can. If we actually have a professional organization that deals with these matters, that organization can also deal with such issues. Note that the recommendations provide an advisory council to create oversight for the ombuds. It's a good progress but it reviews the ombuds office only 3 to 5 years. But I think the combination of advisory council+external office is better. </div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">I have always given an example of inappropriateness of Ombuds socializing during receptions at ICANN (and I mean any reception anywhere): Ombuds is now especially in charge of sexual harassment complaints. How would the victim or complainant feel if they see Ombudsperson is having a drink with the person they filed a complaint against? As to how it should be done etc, the evaluators suggested a light touch approach and not a complete ban from receptions. I don't agree with the evaluators. </div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">You can read the evaluators responses in the Ombuds report <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ccwg-acct-ws2-draft-recs-ioo-05oct17-en.pdf">https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ccwg-acct-ws2-draft-recs-ioo-05oct17-en.pdf</a></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif">Farzaneh </font></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 5:37 PM, Sam Lanfranco <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:lanfran@yorku.ca" target="_blank">lanfran@yorku.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>I would like to second/endorse Michael’s concerns about
outsourcing some of the tasks to outside the Ombudsperson’s
Office. In addition to the risk that outsourced services will be
overly friendly to the establishment position, building capital
for future services retention, there is a high probability that
they will not understand the ICANN context well enough to either
(a) understand the problem in context, or (b) offer
recommendations that are appropriate for the ICANN context. <br>
</p>
<p>While issues may be standard, the purpose of a referral to the
Ombudsperson’s Office is to both deal with the issue at hand, and
to incorporate elements of the solution into ICANN internal best
practice. The advantage to a one-stop Ombudsperson’s Office is
that it (should) more fully understand the ICANN context. For that
to work the Ombudsperson’s Office needs independence,
accountability and -with regard to processes- transparency. It
should have limited capacity to call on external expertise when
dealing with ICANN issues.</p>
<p>It is of course up to the Ombudsperson’s Office to engage in
conduct that preserves its integrity and independence. That
involves deliberate policies about how it deals with ICANN
constituencies (and constituents) in the normal conduct of ICANN
business. Judges must do this all the time. It is no difficult. <br>
</p>
<p>I am not in favor of NCSG support for external expertise. I would
rather have NCSG maintain a “watching brief” on the activities of
the Ombudsperson’s Office, reviewing annual reports to insure
preservation of integrity, than to have to trust the abilities of
external “expert” service providers who fall woefully short in
their understanding of how ICANN works and what recommendations
might be useful. <br>
</p>
<p>Sam L <br>
<br>
</p><div><div class="h5">
<div class="m_4372202862973266118moz-cite-prefix">On 1/7/2018 4:01 PM, Michael
Karanicolas wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Hi,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Great stuff! Thanks very much for taking this forward.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have added some comments. Mainly, I think we need to do a
bit more to flesh out the recommendation about limiting
fraternization/socialization. These are issues that come up in
other contexts - fraternization rules for officers in the
military, socialization/relationship guidelines between judges
and lawyers, etc. However, this is a really challenging
boundary to set, and even more difficult to enforce. I think
if we're going to suggest something as difficult as this, we
need to put a bit more substance behind it and provide some
more concrete ideas. If we're not going to do that, I think we
should put the idea in softer terms, and maybe instead of
demanding a hard rule be included we should suggest that the
Ombudsman's office work in consultation with the community to
set appropriate guidelines for socialization/personal
conflicts.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I also disagree with the idea that going to an external
organization would necessarily be a better guarantee of
independence... Indeed - I think it could have the opposite
effect, since their more tenuous relationship with their
client (ICANN) would create strong incentives not to rock the
boat, or deliver unpopular truths. There's no shortage of
examples of where an institutional oversight/accountability
mechanism does the job well, when sufficient measures are
taken to guarantee their independence. I can't think of many
parallel structures where contracted organizations provide the
kind of accountability we want here - though I would be open
to suggestion.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Michael</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Kathy
Kleiman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kathy@kathykleiman.com" target="_blank">kathy@kathykleiman.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Very
good comments! Tx Tatiana to you and Farzi for taking the
lead on this important issue.<br>
<br>
Best, Kathy
<div class="m_4372202862973266118HOEnZb">
<div class="m_4372202862973266118h5"><br>
On 1/7/2018 2:38 PM, Tatiana Tropina wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Dear all,<br>
Farzaneh and I drafted a comment on the
CCWG-Accountability Work Stream 2 (WS2) draft
recommendations on the ICANN Ombuds Office (IOO).<br>
The call for comment and all the documents related
to it could be found here:<br>
<a href="https://www.icann.org/public-comments/ioo-recs-2017-11-10-en" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.icann.org/public-c<wbr>omments/ioo-recs-2017-11-10-en</a><wbr>.<br>
The draft of the public comment can be found here:<br>
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LrMcu3zsTTyk1DG-2dbBMgzwjjxYxl-aHaYIS-iIGpQ/edit?usp=sharing" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/docume<wbr>nt/d/1LrMcu3zsTTyk1DG-2dbBMgzw<wbr>jjxYxl-aHaYIS-iIGpQ/edit?usp=s<wbr>haring</a><br>
We would appreciate your comments and suggestion. It
is an important piece of work that has been done in
the workstream 2, and we propose some amendments to
it on behalf of the NCSG.<br>
Looking forward to your feedback! Please submit it
till 12-13 of January, as we have to finalise it on
the NCSG PC level before the submission deadline,
which is 14th of January.<br>
Best regards,<br>
Tatiana<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
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