[PC-NCSG] Fwd: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Public comment on draft Articles of Incorporation? FINAL TEXT
Edward Morris
egmorris1
Thu Jul 7 02:30:53 EEST 2016
HI Matt,
I won't insist on a recall as I'm the only opposition I've seen in the NCSG. As you're aware a similar statement has been at least delayed and will not be submitted on time by the CCWG-ACCT group. Of interest, there is a clear divide there between North American lawyers, who have no problem with the proposed AoI, and non American lawyers who perhaps think in a different way than the American lawyers who drafted these American legal documents which create an Amerrican public benefit corporation organised under American law. Greg Shatan and I agree on very little. We agree on this.
"Time to time" is an often used term in the construction of corporate governance documents. It should be viewed as an oppositional statement to "periodic" or "regularly scheduled" events. "May" indicates optional. "Shall" is required. "Shall" in the absence of "time to time" indicates to me a requirement to establish a GPI (something I'm opposed to; I'm a big fan of not creating a hard GPI definition. The NCSG has traditionally been split on this issue, but I'm certainly far from alone in my stance) and that definition itself could be challenged in an IRP if not regularly updated given the proposed absence of a qualifier such as "time to time". Whether such a challenge would succeed is impossible to determine at this point but it certainly passes the "laugh test".
Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation have different purposes and use different language forms and terms. I see no inconsistency between the two proposed texts. In both cases BUMP is to be used to define GPI if GPI is to be defined. In the NCSG statement 'shall' makes defining GPI a requirement and, thus, the proposed change to the AoI is itself inconsistent with the Bylaws (if indeed that is what you are after). If the proposed change is accepted do we then need to suggest changing the Bylaws to make it consistent with the revised AoI which then requires ('shall') BUMP creation of a GPI definition?
Here's the good news: if there is any legally significant difference between the two documents the Secretary of State of California will reject both when they are filed. I'm confident the proposed text would have no trouble getting approval from the Secretary. I'm not so sure about text that includes the NCSG proposed revisions.
Ed
----------------------------------------
From: "matthew shears" <mshears at cdt.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 6, 2016 11:02 PM
To: "Edward Morris" <egmorris1 at toast.net>
Cc: pc-ncsg at ipjustice.org
Subject: Re: [PC-NCSG] Fwd: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Public comment on draft Articles of Incorporation? FINAL TEXT
Ed,
These comments were just submitted. If you insist I will call them back.
The issue is "may" associated with "from time to time" - not just the "may". In the other instancies (the other times) who detemines GPI?
And whether we like it or not there is a langauge inconsistency between the Bylaws and AoI.
Matthew On 06/07/2016 22:52, Edward Morris wrote:
Hi everyone,
I oppose submission of this comment.
'Shall' has a very specific definitional quality in California law and I would be very concerned it would be read by an IRP or court to require not only creation of a hard definition of GPI (which I oppose) but for it to arguably be done on a regular or periodic basis. 'May' gives the community added flexibility and does not, in my opinion, create a possibility that the GPI could be established in other ways opposed by the community. To those who believe otherwise please give an example of where this is positively stated in
the Bylaws or AoI. It isn't.
Neither definition is perfect but the current proposal in my view is better than the proposed substitution.
Best,
Ed
Sent from my iPhone
On 6 Jul 2016, at 18:50, matthew shears <mshears at cdt.org> wrote:
Hi all,
Some of the PC have kindly looked at the text and made comments. However there was no call for consensus on this (my mistake) not has there been a great deal of interest.
The deadline for filing is tonight 23:59 UTC. Below is the final draft text. I feel this is important to file - however I am not sure that it is possible to do so as NCSG due to not following the process or calling for consensus.
One option would be for individuals of the NCSG PC to sign on. I welcome your thoughts.
----------------------
Contribution to the public comment on the Draft Restated ICANN Articles of Incorporation - 6 July 2016.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute comments on the restated Articles of Incorporation .
One of the purposes of reviewing and restating of the Articles of Incorporation (AoI) is to ensure that they are consistent with and reflect the intent and purpose of the new Bylaws.
However, we found one particular issue related to the issue of global public interest or GPI where the restated AoI do not reflect the language nor the intent of the new Bylaws .
Section 1.2 (b) Core Value (ii) of the new bylaws states (our highlighting):
(ii) Seeking and supporting broad, informed participation reflecting the functional, geographic, and cultural diversity of the Internet at all levels of policy development and decision-making to ensure that the bottom-up, multistakeholder policy development process is used to ascertain the global public interest and that those processes are accountable and transparent;
However, Article 2 of the the restated Articles of Incorporation states:
... In furtherance of the foregoing purposes, and in recognition of the fact that the Internet is an international network of networks, owned by no single nation, individual or organization, the Corporation shall, except as limited by Article 4 hereof, pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet, as such global public interest may be determined from time to time by the multistakeholder community through an inclusive bottom-up multistakeholder community process, by carrying out the mission set forth in the bylaws of the Corporation ("Bylaws").
The language in the restated AoI is far from adequate and in no way reflects the intent of the CCWG plan as expressed in the new Bylaws. The new Bylaws are designed to ensure that the global public interest will be ascertained through bottom-up multistakeholder policy development processes. To the contrary, in the restated AoI, global public interest "may be determined from time to time" through a multistakeholder community process. This inconsistency should be addressed in the restated AoI through replacing "may be determined from time to time by the multistakeholder community..." with "shall be determined by the multistakeholder community..!" if we are to bring the AoI in conformity with the Bylaws.
We look forward to this issue being addressed in the final version of the restated Articles of Incorporation.
-------------------------------------------------------
Thanks.
Matthew
On 06/07/2016 03:03, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
I made a few grammaticals, likely am late for the train. Showing as anonymous. Thanks for doing this, it is a very important point.
Stephanie On 2016-07-04 18:22, matthew shears wrote:
Dear all
I would draw your attention to the message below from one of our members and to the proposed comments I had circulated earlier through Trello and spearately. At a minimum I believe that NCSG should comment on the issues related to GPI, as stated in the proposed draft text here in this google doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_0L_c5vCdksJ9TVzfCDoN5OesxJLiRmLwyqQtdLBdrY/edit?pref=2&pli=1
I look foward to your comments on this particular point and on any others related to the restated AoI you may wish to raise. Please comment directly in the google doc.
The restated articles are here:
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/draft-restated-articles-incorporation-25may16-en.pdf
The full consultation details can be found here:
https://www.icann.org/public-comments/draft-restated-articles-incorporation-2016-05-27-en
Thanks for your contributions.
Matthew
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Public comment on draft Articles of Incorporation?
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 21:42:05 +0000
From: Schaefer, Brett <Brett.Schaefer at heritage.org>
To: Thomas Rickert <thomas at rickert.net>
CC: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
Thomas,
As stated in our public comment, I am concerned about the ambiguity of the AoI text on the global public interest. As I sent to the list last Sunday, I do not believe that Samantha's new text on the global public interest addresses the concerns raised in the June 20 call. Specifically, that the proposed phrasing leaves open the possibility that the GPI could at times be determined by non-bottom up multi-stakeholder process.
I suggest that the CCWG request the following text instead of Samantha's text circulated last Sunday: as such the global public interest shall be determined by the multistakeholder community through an inclusive bottom-up multistakeholder community process consistent with the mission set forth in the bylaws of the Corporation ("Bylaws").
I believe that this text would remove any ambiguity about how GPI is determined.
I understand that this would be more controversial and not necessarily legally necessary, but I think that the AoI would be clearer if "organized" were replaced by "incorporated" or "organized and incorporated" and the location of the headquarters was inserted.
Best,
Brett
__________
On Jul 4, 2016, at 3:57 PM, Thomas Rickert <thomas at rickert.net> wrote:
Dear all,
it was good to see many of you in Helsinki and I hope that you had safe trips back home.
We discussed the draft Articles of Incorporation during our last telco and agreed that Sam would send additional information to the list and all of us would then consider further whether or not all concerns have been removed.
Thanks to Sam for providing more information in the meantime.
With the end of the public comment period approaching rapidly, I would now like those of you who think we should raise concerns with a CCWG comment to write to the list within the next 24 hours (until 20.00 UTC on July 5th). Should any concerns raised get ssufficient traction to be considered a CCWG position, we will prepare a comment on that basis.
In any case, we will issue a brief CCWG comment supporting the draft either unconditionally or with any additional CCWG comments there might be based on the approach described above.
Thanks and kind regards,
Thomas
---
rickert.net
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Brett Schaefer
Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002
202-608-6097
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