[council] fw: [CCWG-ACCT] Board position re the GAC carve out

["Edward Morris" <egmorris1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fellow Councillors,

 For those not on the CCWG mailing list, I wanted to share this rather 
'interesting' post from Steve Crocker. I won't comment other than to note that 
the deadline for minority statements was yesterday and the final Supplemental 
report is due today. Nevertheless, this is something we are going to have to 
deal with.

 Best,

 Ed Morris




----------------------------------------
 From: "Steve Crocker" <steve.crocker@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 4:29 PM
To: "Mathieu Weill" <Mathieu.Weill@xxxxxxxx>, "León Felipe Sánchez Ambía" 
<leonfelipe@xxxxxxxxxx>, "Thomas Rickert" <thomas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Steve Crocker" <steve.crocker@xxxxxxxxx>, "Icann-board ICANN" 
<icann-board@xxxxxxxxx>, "Accountability Community" 
<accountability-cross-community@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Board position re the GAC carve out
CCWG Colleagues,

The Board has a serious and continued concern about the issues being raised 
that may result in the reduction of the GAC's ability to participate in 
community decision making. This is most noticeable in the question of 
thresholds for board removal, however this is not an issue about removal or 
even thresholds, it is one part of the community being (or perceiving that it 
is being) sidelined. The Board's concerns with this issue are not about Board 
removal, but about maintaining the balanced multistakeholder model.

The Board is against any changes to the long established equilibrium and 
fairness among the different stakeholders within ICANN. The Board has long 
supported a threshold of four participants for Board removal in the ultimate 
escalation method proposed by the CCWG. Selecting one portion of the ICANN 
community and removing them from the equation - just through the ability to say 
that the community is unhappy with the acceptance of GAC advice that is within 
ICANN's bylaws - raises significant concerns about how the multistakeholder 
model, and the ultimate stability of ICANN as an organization, can be 
maintained. This carved out exception undercuts the established role of 
governments within the multi stakeholder process, and could introduce new 
issues with the acceptance of ICANN's model undermining the work of the CCWG.

We understand that there are concerns with this path from within other parts of 
ICANN community, including members of the GAC and ALAC. The best course, in our 
opinion, would be a careful and objective discussion of the whole matter of how 
advice from ALL parties is appropriately considered within ICANN. If there is a 
graceful way to remove this matter from the immediate pressure of the deadline 
of submitting this proposal and make it a priority matter for either the 
implementation phase or Work Stream 2, we think there will be a solution which 
is genuinely good for everyone.

We encourage you to share the CCWG's proposal with the Chartering Organizations 
while the dialog on this outstanding point continues.

Thank you,

Steve Crocker
Chair, ICANN Board of Directors

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