AW: [NCSG-Discuss] Geographic Regions Review Working Group Report - NCSG Response

[Ayden Férdeline]

Hi Sam et al,

Thanks for your interesting comments. I like that you've started from the basic
question of why do we even have or need regions. I've been thinking about that
this morning - I think geographical boundaries and ensuring diversity here matters , but I struggle to understand how much it matters. As best I can tell, ICANN established regions to ensure 'diversity'
on the Board of Directors, and from that the regions have come to be seen as a
mechanism for ensuring population diversity in ICANN activities. As Milton noted
there are other areas where we can forge commonalities (languages, economic
grounds, cultural factors) -- and probably more effectively -- so should we ask
for a new regions framework (rather than a geographic regions framework)?
There is now a second draft of our statement on Google Docs. For those who have read the first draft, the
only additions are paragraphs 3, 4, 5, and 7. I think paragraphs 5 and 7 could
be a little contentious. I'm not precious about language; if anyone would like
to revise or reword it, please do. This is just a draft. Once I have some
feedback from the community on these points, I'll look to strengthen the
conclusion of the statement in a third draft by adding some 'asks'. Please feel
free to edit the document and to add new bullet points or arguments I may have
missed.
The deadline for consultation responses on this report is 24 April. I'd like to
get a 3rd draft ready by next Tuesday (12 April) with a view to submitting this
to the Comments Forum on 19 April.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-c2vVT2DNO73l89wfZTvKtY70rmaid8g7XBO-Vto9SM/edit?usp=sharing
I welcome and look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Best wishes,
Ayden






Ayden Férdeline Statement of Interest

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 10:08 PM, Sam Lanfranco lanfran at yorku.ca wrote:
All,

I fear that here I am with my "keep it simple" hat on again. Working with
organizations that had to carve the globe up into regions, two easy lessons
learned are: One borrowed from design => Form follows Function. Why does the
organization need regions and what does the organization intend to do on a
region-by-region basis? The other is that no scheme is perfect. Some regions
will have no home (usually for geopolitical reasons) and some will be settled in
a home with less than full consensus (for practical or geopolitical reasons).
One source of conflict is that regional designation may come with entitlements,
for example funds or votes from the designating body. Struggles over
entitlements should not dominate the core issues of why and what for.

For the remit of ICANN with regard to, for example, data retention issues, the
nature of local legal structures need not be an ICANN factor in designating
regions. When an issue such as data retention policy in the European Community
boils to the top, the stakeholder regions self-organize to represent themselves
around the issue, irrespective of how ICANN has organized the regions. As well,
appealing to a law based scheme is problematic. For example, even figuring out
where to put Canada in a law based scheme is difficult. Parts of Canadian law
come from the English (and Scots) common law system . Independently Quebec retains a civil private law system. The responsibilities
of public and private law are separated and exercised exclusively by the Parliament and
the provinces respectively. Canada's engagement, as a country, in any ICANN
issue,will be determined by the nature of the issue, not by it's ICANN regional
designation. If its position is based on ICANN conflicts with national laws, so
be it. That is the issue to be addressed.

Lastly, if there were no ICANN entitlements would there still be a regional
designation issue?

Sam L.



On 31/03/2016 4:11 PM, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
Hi Kathy,
Thanks for your comments. I just wanted to pick up on something; you mentioned
that (similar, presumably) legal structures should be one of our guiding
instruments in the new geographic regions framework. What were you thinking of
here? That in the GAC, ICANN should be measuring how many members have common
and civil law along with, say, Sharia law provisions, in relation to the total
number of countries in the world with those legal systems? How valuable would
that be?
I am not a lawyer so my understanding of this topic is very limited: I thought
every country's legal system had its own identity - though some have been inherited from or influenced by colonialism, or another factor - so I'm not
certain as to what we would be trying to achieve here. What type of diversity
would you like to see in terms of legal structures?
Many thanks,
Ayden


Ayden Férdeline Statement of Interest
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