[governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest

Tue Sep 4 17:11:37 EDT 2012

Disclosure:  I am a member of the ALAC by virtue of being elected within
the Asian Australasian Pacific Regional At Large Organisation to the ALAC.

I will respond as always in my individual capacity and not as an ALAC
member. I have always held the view that dialogue is important in
understanding perspectives.

Snip

 The ALAC and RALOs are jokes, with mostly dead mailing lists dominated in
discussion by a handful of people, perhaps a dozen at most.

I would say that the ALAC and RALOs are a mechanisms that enable
participation into policy processes in an organised manner. The like ALAC
like other Advisory Committees and Supporting Organisations continue to
work towards expanding their base to enable others to participate. As you
can imagine the Policy work within ICANN is mainly technical so building
capacity within At Large Structures its members is critical to enable
meaningful participation within these policy processes. I am also mindful
that aside from capacity there are regions around the world who also
struggle with internet connectivity (aside from cost - access there is also
avalabiity - access) and as such participation is challenging.

I would not call the ALAC and RALO jokes but I would say that there is
always room for improvement and expansion of a critical mass. I am open to
suggestions as I am also preparing a capacity building and outreach paper
to follow the one that I published on the Wiki after Dakar last year.

There are some very good individuals in ALAC and in RALOs, who contribute
greatly to policy making and to ICANN, but their participation could just
as easily be channeled into ICANN the way the GNSO does it, through working
groups.

I hear what you are saying but my views are that the fundamental difference
is that GNSO who have a stake in the pie. The ALAC are kind of like the
Levites or priests, they stand in representation of the people but don't
own land or have vested interests. If they do have vested interests then
they are duty bound to declare those interests. As people who do not have
vested interests but for volunteering to ensure that global public interest
is protected in the best way that they can, it is hard and extremely
challenging to get volunteers to engage in robust discussion on a wide
range of policy and administration matters consistently at an average of 5
hours per day and staying on calls at weird hours like 2am for some
consistently and to do this out of the spirit of volunteerism and in the
name of global public interest. To ridicule this effort is a choice but I
will differ with you on this and say that I stand in admiration of man,
woman and child who in the name of volunteerism have given up sleep, lost a
bit of comfort for the sake of the many. Yes, often times they will go
unappreciated, misunderstood but they are in it because they believe that
people can make a difference.

>
> What At Large is NOT is an accountability mechanism - which is what the
> whole ICANN members/voting system was supposed to be.

At Large in itself is not an accountability mechanism it is all of the
global community within ICANN that exists to add to the potpourri and
balance each other's voices. I know you would have looked at the Bylaws and
they are very clear in terms of the mechanisms available to make the system
accountable.

> When creating ICANN, everyone involved (except, of course, for the people
> who were helicoptered onto the interim Board) thought it was absolutely
> crazy to create a powerful global institution without a membership to which
> the organization could be held accountable.
>

>
>
> The idea that At large is a form of global participation and (more
> importantly) global accountability is just not defensible; many of the
> people in ALAC, far from holding the Board accountable, are trying very
> hard to get onto the board and are very interested in ingratiating
> themselves to the Board and to GAC. Their incentives are to rise up the
> organizational ladder, not to keep ICANN accountable.
>
I believe that the ALAC does its best to hold the Board accountable. As
members of the community, we liaise with all stakeholders within ICANN and
we may disagree on issues but that does not mean we can't leave shaking
hands.  I know no ALAC member whose incentive it is to rise up the
organisational ladder, in fact quite the contrary.

>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: apeake at gmail.com [mailto:apeake at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam
> > Peake
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 2:40 AM
> > To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> > Subject: Re: [governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest
> >
> > Anyone interested in some history of the at large election might look
> here:
> >
> > A one page summary
> > <http://web.archive.org/web/20030627132419/http://www.naisproject.org/
> > report/final/010907abstract.shtml>
> >
> > and reports:
> >
> > http://web.archive.org/web/20030621172016/http://www.naisproject.org/r
> > eport/final/execsummaryA4.pdf
> >
> > http://web.archive.org/web/20030621172016/http://www.naisproject.org/r
> > eport/final/naisreportUSLetter.pdf
> >
> > At the time, I thought the problems were fixable and ICANN should have
> > tried a second round, a lot of the problems would not have been hard
> > to fix.  Now I'm much less sure, I think an annual election would be a
> > massive distraction for the organization and volunteers who already
> > have too little time.  But should not be discounted.  A new study as a
> > new ATRT round starts might be useful.
> >
> > Adam
>
>
>
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-- 
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala
P.O. Box 17862
Suva
Fiji

Twitter: @SalanietaT
Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro
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