[governance] Re: Nomcom and conflict of interest

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

In other words, Guru, a unilateral decision is made as to just who is CS and
who is not (and as I have pointed out, opinion differs).

 

So far your arguments have been very specious, consisting of -

 

.         Arbitrarily claiming that a particular class of organizations are
not CS

.         Citing individual people as counter examples

 

As far as I can see, McTim made a very inspired guess when he speculated as
to why the RIRs and others identified themselves as PS rather than CS - he
pointed out the apparent hostility of various CS groups, coupled with a
broadly stated desire to gain oversight and control (there's no such thing
as "soft oversight" - and certainly not in the direction this is heading),
ignoring all the existing, and open processes in these organizations.

 

You have, as in the statement above, always made your political sympathies
and position clear (and parminder or milton's position is no more or no less
political than yours! This is to respond to your 'I don't see the caucus as
"political" at all. It SHOULD NOT be IMO').  



Come on, Guru . if Parminder and Milton play politics (as you seem to
suggest, and I completely agree), any counter to such a political argument
must necessarily be couched in political terms.  If the argument is not
outright dismissed as inappropriate for this forum and set to lead it in a
completely wrong direction.

 

                suresh

 

 

From: Guru [mailto:guru at itforchange.net] 
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 6:48 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; McTim
Cc: Parminder
Subject: Re: [governance] Re: Nomcom and conflict of interest

 

McTim,

It is incorrect rather inaccurate for you to state that



"This is your position, (and Guru's)."
 

Ian who as the chair of nomcom shared the report with IGC, has already
explained in detail the logic of that para in the nomcom report in a mail of
his. 

The relevant part of the report states 
"Again there was no consensus on this issue within the NomCom - but there
were seen to be potential
conflicts of interest involved for employees and this was combined with the
precedent
already established within CS Caucus to not accept nominations from full
time
employees of existing Internet governance organizations in arriving at our
decision".

Adam has come on the list to support this statement in the report, that this
is in keeping with the IGC position. 
 
Milton and Parminder have also given explanations for this position. I have
done the same earlier, as to why the CEO of ICANN or the CEO of a RIR cannot
be endorsed by IGC to MAG as a CS representative. We need to consider the
interests/positions/perspectives the person will represent and it is not
right that 'Bertrand as a signatory to the IGC charter' can be considered as
a IGC nominee to MAG, when he represents French Govt at GAC. 

Even if diverse, CS does stand for a set of positions that basically seek to
extract accountability from governance institutions. Hence it is wrong to
completely ignore the conflict of interest possibilities for a full time
employee or a CEO of a IG organization and consider him/her for CS
candidature. (As I have mentioned earlier, I am all for moving towards a
world where all those who are governed have also a good role and part in
governance itself, however it is not reality today and pretending otherwise
will continue imo to perpetuate the current distortions in IG). In terms of
identifying which institutions would be covered under this conflict of
interest and what kinds of employment (full time / CEO/ consultants/ part
time etc) could need discussion. Yet the basic principle of 'conflict of
interest' needs to be accepted, this is the very premise on which
multi-stakeholder principle is based. And we need to have this clarity on
who will represent CS in MAG as well, which was partly made clear in the IGC
submission to Feb 2008 consultations.

The signing of the charter by a person cannot be a sole consideration either
way - we consciously tried to get nominations of people from CS outside the
IGC (this was also discussed quite a bit on the list), also membership on
the list is not a sufficient criterion for nomination. The nature of an
organization being non-profit cannot be in itself a sufficient consideration
for ICANN to be CS (by this token all Govts would be CS!). When even ICANN
and RIRs identified themselves as PS, it is quite odd that you keep
insisting that they are CS - being more loyal than the King :-)




And you wonder why these IG orgs identified with PS in WSIS? Maybe
it's because they'd rather have a nice hug rather than a kick in the
ass.  I know which I prefer!


You have, as in the statement above, always made your political sympathies
and position clear (and parminder or milton's position is no more or no less
political than yours! This is to respond to your 'I don't see the caucus as
"political" at all. It SHOULD NOT be IMO').  

Guru



 
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