Public comment on Ombuds Office

[Rafik Dammak]

Hi,

I don't think knowing ICANN context is required for what the ombudsman is
requested to do i.e mediation, investigate or managing the anti-harassment
policy like lately.  In fact, it may create bias and influence decisions
made by the ombudsman, in the long run. I am also cautious about the
narrative that ICANN is unique which is often used to dismiss changes or
common practices and encourage the statu quo.

 Best,

Rafik

2018-01-08 7:37 GMT+09:00 Sam Lanfranco <lanfran at yorku.ca>:

> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Sam L
>
> On 1/7/2018 4:01 PM, Michael Karanicolas wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Great stuff! Thanks very much for taking this forward.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Best,
>
> Michael
>
> On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at kathykleiman.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Very good comments! Tx Tatiana to you and Farzi for taking the lead on
>> this important issue.
>>
>> Best, Kathy
>>
>> On 1/7/2018 2:38 PM, Tatiana Tropina wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>> Farzaneh and I drafted a comment on the CCWG-Accountability Work Stream
>>> 2 (WS2) draft recommendations on the ICANN Ombuds Office (IOO).
>>> The call for comment and all the documents related to it could be found
>>> here:
>>> https://www.icann.org/public-comments/ioo-recs-2017-11-10-en.
>>> The draft of the public comment can be found here:
>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LrMcu3zsTTyk1DG-2dbBMgzw
>>> jjxYxl-aHaYIS-iIGpQ/edit?usp=sharing
>>> 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.
>>> 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.
>>> Best regards,
>>> Tatiana
>>>
>>
>
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