[council] FW: Open Letter to the GNSO Council: Accountability & Transparency starts at the Bottom

[Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>]

Forwarded on behalf of: Neuman, Jeff


Dear members of the GNSO Council,

This is being written in my personal capacity, not on behalf of Neustar and not 
on behalf of the Policy Process Steering Committee or PDP Work Team of which I 
am the chair.  I ask that you send this to the entire council as I do not have 
posting privileges and there is no public comment period or forum for this 
issue (which as you will see is one of the issues I discuss below).

I am writing to you today to express my concerns about a motion that you will 
be voting on tomorrow regarding the new gTLD process, particularly with respect 
to asking the staff to amend the Draft Applicant Guidebook.  First at the 
outset, let me state for the record that I support the substance of the 
proposals and believe the DAG should be changed.  However, despite the fact 
that I support the substance, I do not support this ad hoc process which I 
believe is extending the GNSO Council's role far beyond its role as an 
administrative coordinating body and into the realm of policy development or at 
best implementation.  I have expressed my concerns to my stakeholder group, but 
because they support the substance of the motion and are afraid that voting no 
will somehow detract from the substance, I believe I will be outvoted even 
though some of those voting in favor do oppose the process which was used.  I 
would have posted my concerns in the public forum for this motion, but none was 
created.  Perhaps this may be an idea for future motions?

The IDNG was formed last year to look specifically at the drafting a charter 
for a working group to look at the issue of whether there should be a 
fast-track IDN gTLD Process.  My understanding was that the drafting team was 
unable to come to consensus on creating such a working group or what should be 
in such a charter.  At that point, I believe the drafting team should have been 
disbanded, but that is not my issue for now.  The drafting team continued to 
discuss IDN gTLD issues and came across what the members of the drafting team 
believed was a flaw in the DAG, one in which they are trying to rectify with 
this motion.   I am glad someone found this flaw and I am glad that the members 
of the drafting team would like this addressed (as I do).   However, the  
approach the Council is getting ready to take on this is one which sets a 
dangerous precedent for the future in setting policy at the Council level as 
opposed to bottom-up.

The Council has before it a recommendation from the IDNG to send a note 
directly to the ICANN staff (and by cc: the ICANN Board) directing it to change 
the current version of the DAG to address this flaw.  Rather than taking that 
recommendation and putting it out for public comments or opening up a comment 
forum to address the issues, it is unilaterally proposing to take matters into 
its own hands and pass this resolution.  In doing so, the GNSO Council it will 
send a message to the ICANN Staff and to the Board, that it is a legislative 
policy making body as opposed to that of a policy manager/coordinator.  I 
understand that many on the Council believe time is of the essence because the 
next version of the DAG is supposed to be released in the next couple of weeks. 
 However, please take note that this is not the last opportunity to comment on 
the DAG.  In fact, there is no public comment period to submit this to the 
staff now anyway.  In looking at the Council mailing lists, it appears that 
changes are still being discussed to the motion and I am afraid it is being 
rushed through.  How can an issue get to the Council and a resolution passed, 
without ever putting that issue out for a public comment?

If Council members do support the substance of the motion (as I do), then the 
proper thing for the council to do is to encourage those members in support of 
the substance, including the IDNG Drafting Team, to send a letter on their own 
behalf to the ICANN staff either now or during a formal public comment period.  
Or, if it really wants to have a letter come from the Council to the staff, it 
should put out this motion for public comment until at least the next meeting 
to get input from the community.  However, the Council should not be sending 
such a letter now to the staff or to the Board without getting such input from 
the community in which it is supposed to be serving.  Doing so creates the 
false impression that at this point in time the motion has broad community 
support.  It may have such support, but without putting it out for comment, you 
are not giving those that may oppose an opportunity to be heard.   We chastise 
the ICANN Board for taking such actions, and should lead by example.

As someone who is deeply involved in helping to reshape the PDP and WG 
processes of the future and one who has spent way too much time thinking about 
this kind of stuff, I believe that if the GNSO Council votes and approves this 
motion tomorrow, it will be not only going against the very fabric of what the 
Board Governance Committee stated was the role of the GNSO Council, but will be 
setting a very bad precedent for bypassing the policy process in the future.

Thank you for considering my note.

Jeffrey J. Neuman
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