[PC-NCSG] Fwd: Council Liaison to GAC

[David Cake]

The CSG asked me to justify why I supported a CPH candidate for the GNSO-GAC Liaison position 'over qualified NCPH' candidates. I felt it was a reasonable thing to ask, and the process was not secret, so I replied to them.
But then I felt that it if was going to share my position on this with them, I should really also share it with you. I would have shared this verbally during our tuesday night call, if connectivity here had held up.

While obviously I was acting in vice-chair, and I feel that when acting as vice-chair specifically I should not be directed by the NCSG, I welcome feedback on the process etc.

David

Begin forwarded message:

From: David Cake <dave at difference.com.au>
Subject: Re: Council Liaison to GAC
Date: 4 September 2014 7:08:06 pm GMT+3
To: "Rosette, Kristina" <krosette at cov.com>
Cc: "Adams, Michael D. (michaeladams at mayerbrown.com)" <michaeladams at mayerbrown.com>, "Brian Winterfeldt (brian.winterfeldt at kattenlaw.com)" <brian.winterfeldt at kattenlaw.com>, "Claudio Di Gangi (ipcdigangi at gmail.com)" <ipcdigangi at gmail.com>, "Petter Rindforth (petter.rindforth at fenixlegal.eu)" <petter.rindforth at fenixlegal.eu>, "Steven Metalitz (met at msk.com)" <met at msk.com>

Thank you for asking me to discuss this issue. I would like to make it very clear that I welcome discussion on any action that I take as chair from any member of the NCPH. I apologise for the delay in getting back to you, I can plead only the chaos of travel and the IGF.

You ask why did I support a CPH candidate over qualified NCPH candidates for the GNSO-GAC Liaison. Of course, the decision was not an individual decision, but a decision of the collective council leadership, and so does not does not represent my individual choice. And, of course, if all three members of the leadership team had made their decision based on house affiliation, that would likely have led to a CPH candidate. But I do not believe that that the leadership did make the decision based on house (and obviously, if I felt the process would encourage us to vote on house/SG basis, I would have strongly objected to that process given the CPH majority), and we created a process designed, as much as possible, to assess candidates as individuals. I believe

So, as an initial response, I would never have supported a process that encouraged each of the leadership team to vote on house/SG affiliation, as they would clearly have been to the disadvantage of the NCPH, and once the decision was made to have a selection process that was not biased towards a particular house, I supported the outcome of that process. I want to be very clear on that - I support Mason as a choice, but I support that choice because I feel the decision making process was not biased towards either house (specifically, not the CPH majority), and we were very clear about that point on the call.

That said, I should explain the process we used. Of course, the leadership team also created this process, so I certainly accept partial responsibility for that process.

We used a process where we individually numerically rated candidates against several criteria designed to measure how well we felt they met the advertised criteria for the position, in a simple spreadsheet. That is, we completed this rating exercise individually, and then they were averaged for collective score. Mason rated the highest on that process (not by a huge margin, but a definite one). We then discussed whether there were any other factors that we felt were significant enough that they justified overriding the outcome of that collective rating, including whether we felt there were signifiant factors that were not well represented in the process. We did not find any that we felt were significant enough, but it should be noted that we did not feel that the GNSO leadership should second guess the GAC responses to various candidates.

I can say that I did not feel the process was biased towards the CPH either. For example, the second best rated candidate was an NCPH member, and the margin was not huge. There were certainly well qualified NCPH candidates, but Mason was also a qualified candidate. Both houses had at least one candidate that rated relatively well, and at least one that was rated relatively low.

The process we envisage is that once Mason is approved by the council, we will wait for the GAC to accept our choice of liaison - while I feel the GAC is likely to accept our choice, they will have to vote to allow them to attend GAC meetings and have speaking rights. It is entirely possible that the GAC may decide that they feel Mason is inappropriate. We made a deliberate decision not to determine what the process would be after that point, as that would be impossible to do well without understanding why. It is likely, though, that if for some reason Mason is unable to perform the role, we will return to the existing list of candidates and rating process, taking into account council feedback.

Regards

David





On 4 Sep 2014, at 5:49 pm, Rosette, Kristina <krosette at cov.com> wrote:

Hello David,

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Many thanks!


Sincerely yours,
Kristina
Kristina Rosette
Covington & Burling LLP
1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
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e-mail:  krosette at cov.com
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From: Rosette, Kristina
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 11:10 PM
To: 'dave at difference.com.au'
Cc: Adams, Michael D. (michaeladams at mayerbrown.com); Brian Winterfeldt (brian.winterfeldt at kattenlaw.com); Kristina Rosette; Petter Rindforth (petter.rindforth at fenixlegal.eu); Steven Metalitz (met at msk.com)
Subject: Council Liaison to GAC

Hello David,

I hope all is well with you.

I?m writing in my capacity as IPC President to ask that you help us understand why you supported a CPH candidate for this position over qualified candidates from the NCPH.

I?d be happy to set up a call with IPC leadership if you would prefer.  Or, an email is fine.

Many thanks.
Sincerely yours,
Kristina


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