[NCSG-PC] Questions to the board

[Kathy Kleiman]

Farzi,

As David pointed out yesterday, most of the Board question appears to be 
directed at Small Team *on the GNSO Council.* Do you want to add 
anything about that?  Aren't we concerned about that?

As for the below, I'm not sure this is right. In narrow areas of 
intractability - where the Multistakeholder process truly cannot reach a 
decision (as was the case in Closed Generics) and you have to push 
forward with some resolution, what do you do?  In this case, the GAC has 
a lot of say since they wrote the Beijing GAC Advice 2013 that helped 
stopped Closed Generics and said the fateful (but rather ambiguous 
words) that "exclusive use gTLDs" (closed generics) need to "serve a 
public interest."  But what is that public interest?  It's the GAC who 
needs to explain their own advice, and like anything else in a policy 
process, that's complicated and hard.

In this case, Can't we give some credit to the Board? The last time 
(2015), they took unilateral action to ban Closed Generics, but this 
time, they are trying not to take unilateral action. If the Small Team 
concept can get the Community past a very narrowly-defined bottleneck, 
that may be a *good idea. *

The other is that we - as a Community - *have criticized GAC and ALAC 
**/for coming in at the very end of a policy process and providing major 
input. /*So now GAC/ALAC are being asked to come in earlier so that 
their concerns can be factored into the process before the Policy 
Development Process Working Group dissolves.  Isn't it a little unfair 
to condemn them for doing what we (as a Community) have asked them to do?

**Plus, I was wondering /from our Councilors /whether we should voice 
any concerns about GNSO Council Small Teams? */I worry here that this is 
a problem as it is a) a new Council method which seems to be operating 
without checks and balances and b) something that means NCSG has one 
(rather than six) people involved in a process - a serious imbalanced on 
these Council Small Teams and likely to lead to a real problem if these 
Council Small Teams grow in  number or do serious procedural business.  
Shouldn't the Council be working as a Council (as the full Council has a 
balance and checks in its current structure)?
/*

Best, Kathy

On 3/12/2023 6:26 PM, farzaneh badii wrote:
> Here is the relevant part of our letter:
>
> “3. Such ‘facilitated dialogue’ is giving GAC a more pronounced role 
> in policy making than its advisory role as mandated in ICANN Bylaw.
> GAC is welcome to engage in the policy development process in the 
> early stage as any other SO/ACs in order to ensure a policy outcome 
> that takes the multistakeholder perspective into account.
> That said, it is important and critical that we honour the distinct 
> responsibilities and roles between the GNSO as the policy-making body 
> and GAC as an advisory committee.
> And for that, it is critical that we make sure the multistakeholder 
> model is fair and balanced. Current practice of ACs participating in 
> consensus vote in PDPs while still enjoying the privilege of having 
> their advice as carrying some kind of different weight than the policy 
> recommendations is creating an asymmetrical power relation among AC 
> and SO. This uneven balance can negatively impact the legitimacy and 
> accountability of ICANN’s multistakeholder model.
> In light of the above mentioned, it remains unclear how a facilitated 
> dialogue as proposed can create any other outcome than what the SubPro 
> couldn’t have achieved with 5 years of hard work. On that note, the 
> Noncommercial Stakeholder Group would also like to note that this 
> ‘facilitated dialogue’ can create a dangerous precedent of re-opening 
> issues. The community should learn to accept the product of difficult 
> compromise. And we should all learn to draw the line of when policy 
> recommendations are made and resolved by Council/Board, they are 
> regarded and respected as Consensus Policy.
> The NCSG understands that the issue of Closed Generics remains without 
> an explicit GNSO recommendation as reported in the SubPro Final 
> Report. However, rather than inventing processes and setting a 
> dangerous precedent, we propose using a more balanced multi 
> stakeholder approach in seeking input on this topic. Therefore, we 
> urge the GNSO to reconsider its support to the proposed dialogue.
> 3
>
>  Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group
> Representing the interests and concerns of non-commercial Internet 
> users in domain name policy
> Therefore, instead of pursuing a ‘closed dialogue’ with the GAC where 
> the scope and interlocutors are dictated by the ICANN Board, the NCSG 
> encourages the GNSO to seek community comments and perspectives on how 
> to proceed with Closed Generics throughout the already established 
> participatory mechanisms used by the ICANN community (i.e. public 
> comments and PDPs). We trust that a broader conversation can serve as 
> a good experience to collect the main issues and concerns around this 
> topic, as well as guidance to the GNSO Council members responsible for 
> leading this debate internally - should it occur despite our deep 
> concerns for the ICANN Multistakeholder model and precedent. How else 
> will this small team - some with very long-held personal views on the 
> subject - be bound to a discussion on behalf of the entire GNSO 
> Community?”
>
> What was the board response? We should draft our response considering 
> that too.
>
> On Sun, Mar 12, 2023 at 5:17 PM farzaneh badii 
> <farzaneh.badii at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     If Tomslin has the time to do it I think he is better placed
>     because he was also involved with our objection to creating the
>     closed generic group.
>
>     On Sun, Mar 12, 2023 at 5:14 PM Johan Helsingius <julf at julf.com>
>     wrote:
>
>         On 12/03/2023 17:09, farzaneh badii wrote:
>         > I will do the response wording to the board and send it to
>         the mailing
>         > list. Ill do that tonight hopefully.
>
>         Great! Thanks!!
>
>                 Julf
>
>     -- 
>     Farzaneh
>
> -- 
> Farzaneh
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