[governance] Re: Nomcom and conflict of interest

[McTim]

Hullo Milton,

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 6:55 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:suresh at hserus.net]
>>
>> RIRs are operated on a not for profit basis, are membership driven
>> organizations ..
>
> So is the international trademark association (INTA), and the American
> Petroleum Institute. But both are commercial groups and they would be
> fully represented by the business stakeholder group. Legal status of the
> organization (profit-nonprofit) is less relevant here than the purpose
> of the organization. NCUC in ICANN has made this distinction between
> commercial purposes and noncommercial (civil society) entities for
> years, and no one complains about it.
>
> RIR's membership is predominantly, though not exclusively, composed of
> commercial hosting companies and ISPs -- the most common consumers of IP
> address blocks. But there are also govt agencies and CS groups. RIRs are
> better thought of as multi-stakeholder regulatory organizations, not as
> CS, business or govt. Within the framework of IGF and the Tunis Agenda,
> they fit squarely in the category of "international organizations" along
> with ICANN. So of course RIRs and ICANN, like other international
> governance organizations such as OECD or ITU, will be and absolutely
> should be represented in the MAG and in panels, etc. -- as IOs.
>

I agree that they should and will be, however, that is NOT the issue,
the issue is that WE have excluded them as a class. I note we have not
excluded Gov or PS or IO's as a class tho.  If we want to do this, I
think we need to amend the charter.  IMO, a NomCom does NOT have the
authority to do this.

>> The problem is that people who think the technical community doesn't
>> belong here seem to hold very firmly to the traditional "3 stakeholder
>
>> groups" idea as well.
>
> There is no inconsistency there, as far as I can see (although that
> debate is not one I take a great deal of interest in). As many others
> have said, and as Avri pointed out, technical community can be
> considered a cross-cutting group that is present in civil society,
> business, and government. So it is quite possible for people in e.g.,
> IETF, ISOC, or NANOG to be nominated by civil society groups such as IGC
> as their representative

I'd like this to be true, but if they are full time employees, the
2008 NomCom said they cannot.  How about non-profit ccTLD registry
staff or NREN folk?  I've already given a short list of the hundreds
of orgs that could be affected by this decision, it's not just
ISOC/IETF/RIRs/ICANN/NOGs.

, if the individuals gain the trust and support
> of IGC members. They could also be nominated by business and govt. E.g.,
> Stefano Trumpy, who I guess we would classify as part of the technical
> community, is Italy's official rep. on the GAC.
>
>> And the other problem is that they just don't realize that spurning
>> technical expertise, in policy discussions on a technical resource (so
>> that
>> such governance spans a boundary traditional civ soc groups may not
> have
>> adequate experience with at all), they are shooting themselves in the
>> foot.
>
> I have not heard anyone say that we should exclude technical expertise.
> The issue is organizational conflict of interest.
>

Again, the issue is our charter, and how we follow it going forward
(or amend it).

> On a related note: I think the case of Bertrand de la Chapelle, which
> Suresh keeps bringing up,

I think that was Guru who brought it up IIRC, SR just answered the
direct query to him and reitierated it in his last post.

 is a perfect example of the rationality of
> Parminder's position and the irrationality of Suresh's position.
> Bertrand is indeed a "friend of civil society" in many respects and
> participated alongside us in WSIS. But he is currently a direct
> delegate/employee of the French government, and so his activities in IGF
> are fully constrained by French govt policies and directives, whatever
> he thinks personally. So to suggest that we as CS could even consider
> nominating him to be our representative is just crazy. I am sure
> Bertrand would be the first to recognize the "potential conflict of
> interest" and to understand the inappropriateness of such a nomination.

If that is the case, then it should be dealt with on an individual
basis in the NomCom, OR we change the charter to exclude govt/PS/$.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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