[bestbits] [governance] Call for Participation: Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, 2015

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Dear Barry, and all, for what it is worth this discussion has been had in the sustainable development (Rio+ 5/10/20) process for much longer even than it has been had in the WSIS context. For those interested, I think you'll find some very useful work there on this subject that you can leverage which might make this somewhat eternal argument easier to - hopefully - resolve.

On 18 May 2015, at 19:32, Barry Shein <bzs at world.std.com> wrote:

> 
> You can't have an operational definition of "multistakeholderism"
> without some process to define it such as enfranchisement in a
> governance body.
> 
> One could argue that ICANN has done that via its by-laws. The board of
> directors recognizes certain groups as groups of enfranchised
> stakeholders for each group's stated purpose: Address Supporting
> Organization (ASO), Country-Code Names Supporting Organization
> (CCNSO), Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), Advisory
> Committees (AC, such as GAC, SSAC, RSSAC, ALAC), and then other,
> board, and temporary committees.
> 
> They're narrowly focused (other than perhaps the GAC) on ICANN's core
> mission: Names, numbers, and the stability and operations thereof.
> 
> Nonetheless the process is led by a board of directors chosen by a
> nominating committee consisting primarily of members of those
> organizations, or external organizations given a seat by that board
> (with their own processes for choosing directors), who can approve
> enfranchised stakeholder groups.
> 
> Within each of those groups there are other stakeholder groups
> approved by those groups' leadership and noted in the by-laws who are
> enfranchised to participate in the groups' decision-making.
> 
> For exmaple within GNSO there are the Registries and Regstrars
> stakeholder groups (SGs), Business Constituency SG, Intellectual
> Property SG, Internet Service Providers SG, Non-Commercial Users
> Constituency. And so forth.
> 
> It's all in the by-laws and apologies in advance if I made any small
> errors but I think that's the gist of it.
> 
> One could argue it's rather top-down in that substantive top-level
> changes must get through approval by the board of directors. There's
> no process that I know of, for example, to over-ride the board's
> decisions on such structures though there is a fair amount of latitude
> within each group pertaining to their own leadership, agenda, process
> structures, etc.
> 
> But, for example, I believe the board could in theory dissolve an
> entire Supporting Organization and by implication any enfranchisement
> of their stakeholder groups via a board vote with no formal challenge
> process (no involuntary override) possible.
> 
> One can submit a "reconsideration request" and/or ask for an
> Independent Review Process Panel (IRP) but it's all gated by board
> members (via the Board Governance Committee) or the board acting as a
> whole -- approving such panels and their membership, taking action on
> their recommendations or not, etc.
> 
> -- 
>        -Barry Shein
> 
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