RE: [council] GNSO Review: Council Meeting Thursday 25 August, 12:00 UTC

["Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@xxxxxx>]

Liz, fellow Council members,
this is an excellent start to defining the TOR.
A few comments to help with our discussion on 25 August 2005.
 
1. Call. I would imagine we will need at least 2 hours for the call. 
 
2. A: rationale - Excellent.
 
3. B. Background Documents: I feel a more explicit list of the actions
outstanding from the GNSO Council review is required. Maria circulated a
useful chart on this (6 June 2005).What needs to be included in the TOR
(under each relevant category) from this chart are:
- just the actions identified but not yet completed (eg PDP timelines
review)
- who is expected to do the uncompleted actions (staff, Council, Board?)
Without this analysis we duplicate.
 
4. C: Operational Objectives. This is a useful subset of relevance to the
GNSO.
 
5. D: Scope. 
It would be useful to number the bullet points for ease of reference.
 
6. D1. Representativeness. 
- The sub question about constituencies being open to individuals seems
irrelevant, as does the phrase "who wishes to participate". Is a wish to
participate sufficient reason for an individual? More importantly, that does
not seem to me to be a condition for the stated representativeness of a
constituency. Most constituency members are organisations and provide
representation that way. The ALAC is the home for individual perspectives.
- additional constituencies for more input: perhaps this should be phrased
would add value? There will always be unhelpful input!
- barriers: does this refer to barriers to entry or internal barriers to
communication?
- ALAC, GAC: does this point belong under representativeness of the
constituencies? 
- no mention of the role and effect of the nom comm Councillors.
 
7. D2 Authority/  Effectiveness.
It is difficult to understand the distinction of these two categories when
read in conjunction with the sub-points under each category. Maybe room to
remove one category?
 
8.D2 Authority
 - Is it always Council that should have implemented the outstanding GNSO
Council review items?
- fairness: this is a challenge to define and judge. Propose deletion.
-  double voting. This should be expanded to cover questions of rationale,
merit, skewed outcomes, and anti-trust implications, 
- The GNSO Council bylaws DO need amending re PDP - no need to ask the
question! (this is a good example of potential duplication).
- I don't understand the point about constituency structure here. Does this
not duplicate Representativeness?
 
9. D3 Effectiveness. 
- point two about "benefits to all parties" seems too wide for this review -
unless there is a USD10m budget for the review!!!
- PDP - the GNSO Council Review has already said it needs changing.
Duplication again.
- "ICANN is satisfied".  Need to define ICANN - board, staff, community? If
community, remember there will be parts of the community who are never
satisfied! Also need to define satisfied. Board disagreement may lead to
Board dissatisfaction with a policy but nevertheless the GNSO process and
outcome could have been the model of effectiveness!
 
10. Transparency.
- It will be useful to completely separate the points about participation /
accountability of affected parties and conflicts of interest.
- The GNSO Council review already identified the website as in need of
improvement.
 
11. Measures. 
- I agree this is important but also the most challenging part of the
proposal! The section is not of course separate but actually a methodology
for all the other sections. Maybe we should seek to capture this in some
way.
- Point 4a about defining open, fairness, bottom up will be key. Unless
these items are defined for the purpose of the review, certain of the
proposed questions of the review, will be impossible to answer objectively.
Propose therefore that this should be a point nearer the top of the TORs.
 
Philip