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

[parminder]

On Monday 18 May 2015 11:02 PM, Barry Shein 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.

Barry, by your account nothing can be more top down than
multistakeholderism, as we know it, which is exactly the opposite of
what is sold as its primary value, being bottom up. And this precisely
sums up what is wrong with multistakeholderism as a new post-democratic
political device or institution... parminder

>
> 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.
>

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