Mr. Chairman and members of the
ICANN board….
I am personally
responding here to a letter you have received from Executive Committee of
the Commercial and Business Users Constituency indicating that it was "their
understanding" that the weighted voting provided for in the new ICANN Bylaws
does not apply to the selection of the two directors to be chosen from the
GNSO and alluding that had they known of the recent interpretation of the
Bylaws from the General Counsel, they may not have supported the weighted
voting.
The BC Executive
Committee also argues that ICANN should revert
to its previous method of voting, "one constituency one vote", for these
directors, because “elections do not occur too often”…. (Whatever that
means!)
I feel
quite strongly that these 11th hour arguments have no merit. I
am also quite concerned that they only tend to confuse & obfuscate the
ICANN reform effort and all the hard work and compromise from all sides that
it represents.
I
support the General Counsel's interpretation of the Bylaws with respect
to weighted voting and believe that it is the accurate interpretation as to
how the GNSO is to select its two ICANN Board of
Directors.
From the inception of
the ICANN Reform effort, the Registrar Constituency acknowledged that reform
was needed both of the ICANN Policy Process as well as the methodology used in
selecting ICANN Board Directors. The Board, (in it’s wisdom) acknowledged that not all
stakeholders are equally affected by the policies recommended and passed by
the ICANN Board of Directors. They recognized that, not only are the
Contracted service providers the principal source for funding that
ICANN receives, but they, unlike any other stakeholders, are
contractually bound to comply with any ICANN consensus policies.
It
would be inconsistent, to say the least, to have an equalized voting structure
that recognizes the need, as the Board has, for weighted voting in the
policy process, but not in the selection of ICANN Board Directors
within the GNSO, who may be called upon to make such
decisions.
For if the GNSO
voted for its ICANN Board Directors, as the Business Constituency argues, "one
constituency, one vote", one can easily see that such a vote would be
susceptible to capture by those that are not under contract with ICANN.
I believe that we can safely assume that the number of non-contracting
constituencies will increase over the next couple of years (adding a small
business constituency, an academics constituency, an individuals constituency,
etc. as was hinted at during the reform process) as compared with two
contracting parties.
We need
to have the comfort of knowing that the ICANN Board Directors selected from
the GNSO are truly representative of the TOTAL GNSO community,
which includes not only user constituencies, but also contracting parties
The Registrar
community is confident that this process will work if the safeguards
proposed by the ERC and adopted by the ICANN Board in Shanghai
are kept in place as we move forward with a reformed
ICANN.
Due to the late hour
in which the issue has been raised by the Executive Committee of the BC, it
was impossible to fully consult with my Constituency prior to composing this
letter, but based on the Registrar Constituency support given to the ERC and
their efforts in drafting the by-laws, I am confident that this document
represent the feelings of our members.
Thanking you in
advance for your consideration in this matter
Ken
Stubbs
Names Council
Representative