RE: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and Amendments

[Adrian Kinderis <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill,

.  I thought we were elected to represent our respective slices of the 
community and after consulting with them could act in their names, and if they 
don't like what we've done we get unelected in the next cycle.

Is this not the same debate as "participatory vs representative"?

For what it is worth, I share the same quandary.


Adrian Kinderis



From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of William Drake
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 6:17 PM
To: Gomes, Chuck
Cc: Rosette, Kristina; GNSO Council List; Knobenw
Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and Amendments

Hello,

It seems there are two levels to this discussion.  The broader one concerns the 
nature and role of the Council.  Kristina argues that the Council " has been 
greatly restricted in the restructuring and the initially proposed mechanism 
goes beyond that role," and that "having a slightly more complicated process at 
the SG level is far preferable to having the Council take on an SG role and 
make nominations independent of the community."  I wasn't around when the 
veterans among us were having the constitutional discussions leading to Council 
reform, so I guess I'm not sufficiently clueful on how everyone sees this.  
While I understand that Council is now supposed to be more a 
coordinator/facilitator of community processes than the doer of all things, I 
did not take this to mean that it cannot legitimately make decisions via votes 
on matters like adding a person or two to enhance the diversity of the GNSO's 
RT nominations because that would be acting independently of the community.  I 
thought we were elected to represent our respective slices of the community and 
after consulting with them could act in their names, and if they don't like 
what we've done we get unelected in the next cycle.  So then what decisions can 
we take that do not constitute acting independently of the community, where's 
the boundary line?  If I'm the only one who is perplexed I hope someone will 
straighten me out in Brussels...

Anyway, on the issue at hand, Chuck your understanding of the drafting team's 
proposal is not different from everyone else's.  The text clearly says "The 
Council will consider the resulting list of up to four nominees at its next 
teleconference.  If the list does not meet the above mentioned diversity 
objectives, the Council as a whole may choose to endorse up to two additional 
candidates..."  Two additional is additive, not substitutive.  To my knowledge, 
the notion that after considering diversity options the Council would endorse 
only four (Kristina's Step 2, below) is new, it wasn't included in the 
amendment language she sent to the list (quoted at the bottom) and I don't 
recall anyone suggesting it on the call.  From my standpoint, this is even more 
problematic than what we were talking about previously.  It would either a) 
astronomically politicize the process by raising the prospect that Council 
could overturn SG's one-per endorsements, leading to inter-SG squabbling over 
whose gets dumped and associated bad feelings...and talk about undercutting SG 
sovereignty!; or b) create really strong disincentives to do anything to 
enhance diversity in order to avoid that scenario.

The whole point of the drafting team proposal was to make the process simple 
and apolitical, driven in large part by the fact that the ATRT model with the 
two competitive seats appeared to generate a lot of confusion and agitation 
within one SG in Nairobi.  This proposal would plunge us far in the opposite 
direction.

Circling back to what we were talking about yesterday, the text below that 
Kristina sent Thursday during the call says, "the Council as a whole may choose 
to endorse up to two additional candidates, from among those identified by the 
stakeholder groups under item 2."  That plainly means only those identified by 
the stakeholder groups under item 2, there's no misunderstanding here.  In 
yesterday's message she instead proposes what Chuck suggested on the call, that 
the rest of the pool could in fact be considered, but only after Council has 
discussed SGs' back-up endorsements.  This is better from the standpoint of 
those of us who think Council should be able to consider the whole pool, but as 
I said yesterday it's not obvious why we would need to legislate what we would 
undoubtedly do anyway based on common sense and courtesy.  But if it makes 
folks happier....While we're at it, maybe we should also codify the precise 
sequence of the discussion, i.e. the order in which SG back-ups get considered 
and the time allotted to each?

Best,

Bill




On Jun 14, 2010, at 6:24 AM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:


All this makes me think that my understanding may be different than everyone 
else.   I understood that endorsements by the SGs would remain regardless of 
what the Council might do to improve diversity.  If the Council was successful 
at gaining support for one or two candidates that improved the diversity of the 
pool, then the pool of endorsed candidates would increase to 5 or 6 depending 
on whether one or two additional candidates were selected.  The difference as I 
understood it between what Kristina proposed and the original procedure, which 
is apparently wrong, was that the step in the original procedures the Council 
would look at the full slate of candidates seeking GNSO endorsement while what 
I thought Kristina suggested was that the Council would first look at SG named 
alternates first and only if that was unsuccessful would they look at the full 
slate of candidates seeking GNSO endorsement.

Chuck

From: Rosette, Kristina [mailto:krosette@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 10:17 PM
To: William Drake; Gomes, Chuck
Cc: GNSO Council List; Knobenw
Subject: RE: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and Amendments

I hope I'm responding to the most recent message. If not, would someone please 
forward it?  (All of my email rules have disappeared and I now have thousands 
of messages in my in box.)

The concern driving the proposed amendment is that the Council's role has been 
greatly restricted in the restructuring and the initially proposed mechanism 
goes beyond that role.  The greater specificity in the process, the greater the 
certainty.  There was concern that the Council would move directly to the 
broader applicant pool without considering the SG additional candidates.

To avoid any confusion about my proposed amendments (and it appears there may 
be some), here's the step-by-step for the two scenarios

Scenario 1 (diversity goals met with SG nominees):  Council receives 4 
nominated (or whatever we're calling them) candidates (1 from each SG), 
diversity goals are satisfied, so Council endorses all four candidates.

Scenario 2 (diversity goals not met):

Step1:  Council receives 4 nominated SG candidates (1 from each SG), but 
diversity goals are not met.
Step 2:  Council then considers the 6 additional candidates (2 SGs named 1, 2 
SGs named 2) named by the SGs.  If consideration of these additonal candidates 
results in a slate that meets diverseity goals, Council endorses 4 candidates.  
If not, see Step 3.
Step 3:  Council then considers all remaining persons in the applicant pool 
(e.g., all persons who submitted applications but weren't nomiated by SGs or 
identified as "additional candidates).  The last sentence in my number 4 was 
directed to this step.

If my proposed amendments did not make that clear, please let me at what step 
they weren't clear enough.

________________________________
From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 11:30 AM
To: Gomes, Chuck
Cc: GNSO Council List; Rosette, Kristina; Knobenw
Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and Amendments
Hi Chuck

On Jun 13, 2010, at 4:48 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
I personally support the motion as proposed because I think the required 
threshold of 60% of each house for any additional candidates provides more than 
enough protection to ensure SG support.  That would require 5 affirmative votes 
for the CPH and 8 affirmative votes of the NCPH, so no SG could control the 
vote, not even with the NCA vote.  With that protection, it seems problematic 
to add more complexity to the process.
At the same time, if there are those who cannot support the original motion as 
is, I think I could support a modification that would do the following:
1.       If the Council decides to try to improve the diversity of the pool of 
GNSO endorsed candidates, they would first consider those alternate candidates 
proposed by the SGs, if any.

Wouldn't we do this anyone as a matter of courtesy and common sense without 
codifying it?  If there's a pool of 8 candidates and SGs have come to internal 
agreement that they could support persons x y and z, presumably their reps 
would indicate that when the conversation begins and we'd commence talking 
about x y and z before moving on to the five nobody had yet preferred.  Would 
anyone really say well, your SG may like Ms. x but I refuse to talk about her 
and insist we start with someone nobody's said they favor?



(One flaw with this as Bill noted in our meeting last week is that an SG could 
submit all remaining candidates as alternates.)

After I said that, somewhat in jest, Kristina specified in the amendment, 
"notify Council of one or two additional candidates whom it could support, if 
available."



2.       If the Council is unable to approve any additional candidates to 
improve diversity of the pool using only  SG proposed alternates, then they 
could consider the entire set of candidates requesting GNSO endorsement.
3.       I would add one new wrinkle to this: SG's should only propose 
alternates that are of a different geographical location or gender than their 
primary candidate.  In fact this would probably be a useful amendment to the 
original motion.

I'd favor that, but not if it's tied to prohibiting the Council from even 
considering people who were not so designated.



What the IPC is proposing is that only applicants that SGs have previously 
designated as acceptable back-ups could even be considered by the Council for 
this purpose.



[Gomes, Chuck]  I didn't understand it as this restrictive.  I thought Kristina 
said that the SG alternatives would be considered first; then if that didn't 
result in a successful resolution, other candidates could be considered.

That's what you suggested as an alternative.  Kristina's text says

3.  Change third bullet of #2 to read:  Each stakeholder group is encouraged to 
(a) identify in its internal deliberations and (b) notify Council of one or two 
additional candidates whom it could support, if available, in the event that 
the diversity procedure outlined in item 4 below is utilized.

4.  Change the now-third sentence of point 4 to read: If, however, the list 
does not meet the above mentioned diversity objectives, the Council as a whole 
may choose to endorse up to two additional candidates, from among those 
identified by the stakeholder groups under item 2, who would help to give the 
list of GNSO nominees the desired balance.  If consideration of these 
additional stakeholder group-identified candidates does not meet the diversity 
objectives, the Council may refer to the GNSO applicant pool to identify these 
additional candidates.
So anyone in the applicant pool who has not been specifically endorsed for 
possible consideration could not be considered.

Best,

Bill


***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
 Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
www.linkedin.com/in/williamjdrake<http://www.linkedin.com/in/williamjdrake>
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