[NCSG-EC] Consumers' Candidate Constituency

[Tapani Tarvainen]

Dear all,

One agenda item in our meeting tomorrow is the status of Consumers'
Constituency. It's been candidate constituency for a long time but has
had no activity in years, so I think it's about time to close the book
on it.

I contacted its last known representative, Dorothy Gordon, who told me
she tried to reach out to others who'd been there earlier without
success, as well as Avri Doria, who was involved when it was started,
and they agree it's defunct and don't object to its being terminated.

Should someone want to revive it they can restart the process by
re-applying for candidate status.

Below are relevant items from GNSO rules and our charter (thanks
to Avri for help here).

Reading them it is quite evident that Consumers' Constituency does not
qualify as a constituency, so I propose we'll remove its candidate
status fortwith, as a separate step in our review process.

I am open to persuasion if someone wants to carry it along while
we review our active constituencies and remove it only when that
process is complete, but at the moment I don't see a need for that.

References:

https://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/new-constituency-recog-process-24jun11en.pdf

> A. Request for Recognition (RFR) Submittal Within 6 months of a Board
> resolution approving an Applicant Constituency to enter the Candidate
> Phase, the proponents will submit to the SG (via
> new-constituency at icann.org) a Request for Recognition (RFR) as a
> Constituency in the SG. This request will include: 1) An Activity
> Report containing: a) A summary of the Candidate Constituency’s
> participation in the SG’s activities as described in Appendix 2 of
> this document, and b) The Candidate Constituency’s membership growth
> to reach the goals described in Appendix 2 of this document. 2) A
> proposed charter for the Constituency developed in accordance with the
> criteria in Appendix 3.

Appendix 2

> To qualify to become a Recognized Constituency, at a minimum, the
> Candidate Constituency must: 

> 1) Have prepared and submitted a formal charter with specific
> governance mechanisms and provisions that are consistent with the
> checklist set forth in Appendix 3. 

> 2) Have participated actively in at least two GNSO Working Groups
> (including committees, work teams, drafting teams, or other
> Council-approved structures) with its representatives attending at
> least 50% of the scheduled meetings. 

> 3) Have prepared and submitted at least two Constituency policy
> position statements or other policy analyses to its Stakeholder Group
> and/or other recognized GNSO forum (e.g. GNSO Council, ICANN Public
> Comment Forum). 

> 4) Have demonstrated active engagement in the applicable Stakeholder
> Group by becoming a participant in at least two committees, if
> appropriate and applicable, with its representatives attending at
> least 50% of the scheduled meetings. 

> 5) For Constituencies whose membership is more than 50% comprised of
> organizations, criterion (a) will apply; for Constituencies whose
> membership is more than 50% comprised of individuals, criterion (b)
> will apply. 

> a) Show a membership count of at least thirty-two (32) organizational
> entities with four entities located in each of at least four ICANN
> Geographic Regions or at least two entities from all five ICANN
> Geographic Regions. To satisfy this criterion, the entities must be
> unrelated to each other. 

> b) Show a membership count of seventy (70) individual members with
> fourteen individuals located in each of at least four ICANN Geographic
> Regions or at least seven individuals from each of five ICANN
> Geographic Regions.

The rules in the NCSG charter for a constituency that is operational
to retain recognition include:

> 2. Constituencies must have maintained a dynamic publicly archived
> discussion list;
>
> 3. Constituencies must have participated actively in relevant NCSG and
> GNSO Policy Development Process Working Groups or Work Teams;
>
> 4. Constituencies must have participated actively in submitting
> comments and other policy statements to the NCSG and to the GNSO; and
>
> 5. Constituencies must have at least 10 participants who sign on to an
> updated SOI for maintaining recognized status as a Constituency.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen