RE: [centr-excom] Re: [council] Reminder about DNSO constituencydeadlines on geographicdiversity

["Andrew McLaughlin" <mclaughlin@pobox.com>]

Dear Willie:

I certainly wouldn't presume to talk you out of challenging the ICANN
Board's right to do something (it's a fun sport to some parts of the net).
But it's worth noting a few facts, just for the record.

1.  The ICANN Board has consistently since last March required that the
constituencies adhere to the geographic diversity provisions of the ICANN
Bylaws, which stipulate that each constituency's three NC reps be citizens
of different regions.  See <http://www.icann.org/minutes/3_31exhibitB.htm>.
The ccTLD constituency (along with others, I should add) employed a voting
system which did not guarantee a result consistent with the Bylaws.

2.  Rather than re-run its elections, or modify the result to comply with
the Bylaws, the ccTLD constituency (via Rob Hall) requested a waiver of the
geographic diversity requirement as to Nigel Roberts.  In October, the Board
agreed to the request, granting final recognition to the ccTLD constituency,
and setting January 15 as the date on which the constituency should bring
itself into compliance with the Bylaws.  The mechanism (applied uniformly to
the ccTLD, registrar, and IP constituencies) was to shorten the length of
the terms of all NC members for whom geographic diversity waivers had been
requested.  Thus, rather than reject the request outright last October, the
Board gave the constituencies roughly three months in which to figure out
how best to come into compliance with the Bylaws on that point.

Some have argued that the Bylaws make a mistake by requiring geographic
diversity based on citizenship.  Others have complained that it has taken
over nine months for the Board to require the constituencies to achieve the
geographic diversity requirements set forth in the Bylaws.  If you think the
Bylaws take the wrong approach on geographic diversity, you and your
constituency should launch an effort to change the Bylaws.  If some sort of
consensus in favor of change were to develop, I'm sure the Board would
respond accordingly.  But it seems to me somewhat misplaced to challenge the
Board's right to require the constituencies to comply with a provision of
the ICANN Bylaws which has been known to all since last March.

Best regards,

--Andrew


[ -----Original Message-----
[ From: Dr W Black [mailto:W.Black@nominet.org.uk]
[ Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2000 6:35 AM
[ To: Dennis Jennings
[ Cc: mclaughlin@pobox.com; council@dnso.org; CENTR Executive
[ Subject: Re: [centr-excom] Re: [council] Reminder about DNSO
[ constituencydeadlines on geographicdiversity
[ 
[ 
[ Well, of course, I still challenge the ICANN Board's right to set Nigel
[ term of office to expire on 15 January 2000.
[ 
[ W.B.
[