[governance] MAG meeting

[Roland Perry]

In message <CAADCFAC-1DB4-4BE4-83FE-8268C24450E4 at acm.org>, at 20:59:20 
on Fri, 25 Feb 2011, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> writes
>
>On 25 Feb 2011, at 20:42, Roland Perry wrote:
>
>> In message <p0624081fc98d21dbe476@[10.58.179.68]>, at 02:16:55 on 
>>Sat, 26 Feb 2011, Adam Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp> writes
>>
>>> And we should ask that the commitment to the rotation of MAG members 
>>>is honored.
>>
>> This is one thing that puzzles me. MAG rotation is supposed to be one 
>>of the topics that the MAG recomends[1]. But there have been several 
>>occasions (this week was one) where the topic seemed taboo. And the 
>>final impression was that it was entirely the gift of the UN.
>
>In the past this was up to the MAG.  And with the exception of a few 
>people, most chose not to step down voluntarily.    There was a 
>discussion of rotation most every year, and some MAG members were 
>replaced every year.  I have actually never seen a graph of how many, 
>in total and per group, rotated each year, so I don't know what the 
>facts of rotation are.

It's disappointing that there's apparently no official record of this, 
but I have my own chart - which I referred to a few days ago. It reveals 
almost no rotation in 2008, and a new influx of about 20 in 2009 who 
join 16 people appointed in 2006 and 18 from 2007.

>I know the anecdotal impressions, but have no idea of what is the case. 
>Has anyone done the tracking and have informative pictures?

Perhaps I should publish my chart.

>At the point of your puzzlement, at this point all organizational 
>issues that do not relate specifically to IGF 2011 are out of  the IGF 
>and MAG's hands.  Whatever the prior conditions were, all 
>organizational issues and improvements belong to the blue ribbon panel 
>of the CSTD IGF WG.

If that's the case (and I'm not disputing it) then their outcome will 
most certainly not affect IGF2011 (because it has to be sent via CSTD to 
ECOSOC etc), so we have yet another annual cycle with no MAG renewal. 
Which means that even the newest appointees have had three years tenure.

>If they solve this and only this, they will have made great progress. 
>It is really hard to get a group to remove itself from the core. 
>Somehow it seems that many of  those who have a special seat will do 
>anything to hold on that seat - though there are some few that do 
>surrender them readily and believe in things like term limits that make 
>it easier to do so.

I had originally understood the MAG rules to say that 1/3 would be 
retired every year, with the assumption that (once there was a couple of 
years to get a pattern started) this would be the longest-serving 1/3. 
But that's clearly not what's happened.
-- 
Roland Perry
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