[bestbits] Post-Brazil appointments: future of civil society IG coordination group

Jeremy Malcolm jeremy at ciroap.org
Mon Jan 20 02:06:29 EST 2014


I'm posting here some thoughts recently discussed among  members of the
civil society coordination group for comments and input. It relates to
some options for this group. It would be good to have comments and
input. (Ian Peter has also posted this message to the governance list;
reply on whichever thread you wish, and we will capture them all.)

 

What we are proposing is a period of on line discussion, after which we
will probably conduct some sort of on line straw poll to get a feeling
for how people think about options emerging. So please comment and
digest, and we will look forward to getting wide input.

 

But firstly- is there a need for such a group?

 

There certainly was in the context of appointing representatives for
Brazil and 1net, and we would argue that it is highly advisable for
functions such as MAG nominations.  Perhaps there are no other great
needs at this stage, but they might arise. And certainly a continuing
communication between groups working in the area of internet governance
might be useful.

 

The alternative to all of this re-organisation would be for the group to
go into recess until another urgent need arises. But that choice would
simply reinforce the criticism that exists of this group (or its
successors) when there is a need again - or alternatively lead to
fragmented selection processes that hinder civil society representation.

 

 

1. EXPANSION OF THE CO-ORDINATION GROUP

 

This has been the subject of previous discussion with a number of
different parties and it was decided to defer further considerations
until after Brazil nominations were complete. There was also some
discussion  on list here immediately before Christmas about some
possible criteria for involvement.

 

One possibility we would suggest here is we could decide to  enlarge the
group to (say) 9 -12 people. The current voting members could remain and
would be joined by one of the incoming IGC Co-ordinators. For additional
voting members, we suggest that we open it up to expressions of interest
-- but not only from organisations, but also from individuals. That
allows involvement of representatives of multistakeholder groups with a
strong relationship with civil society (eg IRP). That might be a good
step, and to this we could add rotation of members.... or leave such
questions until the co ordination group is fully populated.

 

That's the first issue where clarity is needed. But how to select....

 

 

2. SELECTION PROCEDURES (possibly for expanding the co ordination group,
but also for any future CS representation).

 

We present three different options here.

 

OPTION ONE - VOTING

 

This works well within one organisation, but is more difficult with
multi-organisational elections -- who is in for voting, who is out? And
some of us remember the original ICANN at large elections, where
suddenly thousands of people with no previous involvement got involved
in support of one candidate who was elected with a large majority. The
context for us here is that, without a consolidated  membership list of
all our organisations, this is very open to capture and manipulation.
And setting up and maintaining a multi-organisation single voting list
is a fairly time consuming administrative task. (and then we need to ask
which organisations mailing lists and/or membership lists would be included)

 

So there are a few issues to solve if we take that direction.

 

OPTION TWO -- RANDOM NOMCOM

 

This option has been widely used in IETF and was adopted in the Charter
of IGC. We are not aware of anywhere else it is used but there may be
some other examples.

 

While this form is gospel to some people, others have reservations.

 

Ian Peter writes, as one critic with some experience of this

 

"My personal reservations arise from involvement with perhaps 9 or so
random Nomcoms, with the following results:

  * 2 included known trolls.
  * Only one of 9 had all members active -- most worked on the basis of
    only one or two active members.
  * One refused to work with the appointed Chair
  * One had the Chair drop out mid process and ended up with one
    individual making decisions
  * Gender and geographic balance are purely left up to chance."

To this we would add issues involved with random selection when
factions/different organisations are involved. It is easy in this case
for important sections of CS to be left out entirely from deliberations
because they weren't randomly selected.

 

So some of us caution against use of this form in the context of a
multi-organisational steering group, arguing that these are important
matters of representation best not left to chance.

 

OPTION THREE -- APPOINTED NOMCOM

 

This is the most widely used form and is used by technical community,
business community, ICANN, and just about any other organisation we can
think of. It's the safest way, providing that transparent, accountable
and inclusive processes are used to select the members of the Nomcom.
That would be something the coordination group mentioned above could
undertake when in place.

 

And I am sure there are other variations. But they need to be agreed to
and sorted out.

 

3. CRITERIA

 

We also need criteria for selection. Previously we discussed these in
terms of determining suitable organisations who would nominate
representatives. But if we are looking at individuals as well, they will
need to change. But for reference, the previous discussions left these
under consideration

 

1. Is it a coalition which is globally representative - all regions covered?

2. Is it non-commercial and public interest oriented (as opposed to
business)?


3.  Would it more properly fit under technical community, academic,
business or government in its categorization?

4.  Is a large part of this coalition's members already covered by one
of the existing  members?


5. The internal governance of the coalition is adequately transparent
and accountable to its members.

 

6. Does the coalition have a substantial current involvement in and
knowledge of internet governance issues

 

Obviously if individuals are to be considered these have to change.

 

Over to everyone for comments.


-- 

*Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
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