[atlarge-discuss] ALOC Draft

[Sotiris Sotiropoulos <sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>]

All,

Seems the list software is set up to reject attachments.
I've included the working draft below.

Sotiris Sotiropoulos
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At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)  -- A discussion text
-- 21 July 2002
1. Background
a. Need for At-Large….mechanism for individual users'
participation in ICANN…formalized role in the policy
development process that ensures that user views are
seriously taken into account…
b. Etc
2. Role and Responsibilities
a. ALAC is a standing advisory committee of the Board
b. Provides advice and guidance to the Board and to other
organizations within ICANN on the needs of, and the impact
of proposed policies on, the Internet's individual users –
addressing pending issues and introducing new issues
relevant to Internet issues and within ICANN's purview.
c. Serves both as a resource for ICANN to pursue specific
issues/questions and solicit user information, and as a
meeting point for individual Internet users and their
organizations.
d. All ICANN policy-making entities will provide ALAC with
appropriate notice of upcoming and pending policy
discussions and impending policy decisions to ensure
adequate opportunity for At-Large input
e. Through At-Large Structures, ALAC will engage in
outreach to, and education of, individual Internet users
about ICANN/ICANN issues and will involve users and their
representatives in decision making, aggregation of views,
and identification of relevant Internet user priorities
f. ALAC will work with other ICANN stakeholders to address
issues and develop positions on relevant issues
g. ALAC will use on-line mechanisms as focal points for
discussions and information dissemination, ensuring broad
public access to ALAC activities
h. ALAC will ensure key material is appropriately
translated and made publicly available.
3. Structure/Membership
a. Should be structured so as to:
i. Provide effective, broadly inclusive mechanism for
involving and representing individual Internet users in
ICANN's policy and decision-making activities
ii. Demonstrate that the organizations of which the ALAC
is composed actually do represent the populations they
claim to represent.
iii. Have membership that is geographically diverse, and
includes representatives from each At-Large Structure
(group) that meets specified criteria.
4. Involvement w/ Board, other entities
a. Non-voting liaison seat on the ICANN Board
b. Liaisons to other ICANN policy-making bodies as
appropriate [Note: need to define]
c. Appointment of delegates to the Nominating Committee
[Note:  how many?]
5. "At-Large Structures" Criteria – new or existing
organizations that:
a. Are open, participatory, and self-sustaining [Note:
need to elaborate]
b. Engage in outreach to, and education of, individual
Internet users about ICANN and ICANN issues
c. Involve individual Internet users in policy and
decision-making and activities related to involvement in
ICANN, including soliciting opinions of their members and
having participatory mechanisms for the discussion and/or
development of policies, aggregating views, and
identifying relevant Internet user priorities concerning
ICANN
d. Maintain transparent and publicly accessible processes
for input, policy development, and decision-making
e. Post current information about the organization's aims,
structure, membership, working mechanisms and current
leadership
f. Are open for new members
g. Are able to maintain themselves without requiring
funding from ICANN
6. At-Large Structure Designation/Development
a. ICANN should post and distribute a call for At-Large
Structures, providing organizations with an appropriate
period of time apply to be eligible to participate in
(send representative to) the initial ALAC.
b. Organizations fulfilling the criteria can apply to
become At-Large Structures at any time and participate in
the ALAC as appropriate (immediately or during next
selection cycle depending on process).

[Note:  More thought/discussion needed; the ALAC must be
able to demonstrate (not just assert) that the groups (the
"at large structures") of which the ALAC is composed
actually do represent the populations they claim to
represent. Examples of "demonstration" include evidence
that a group has programs and activities that in fact (not
just in principle) engage individuals in ways that make
the group a genuinely representative "at large structure"
with respect to ICANN.]
7. ALAC Composition (options)
a. (Variable membership) One member from each At-Large
Structure
b. (Fixed membership) Fixed number from each region (ICANN
has traditionally addressed geographic diversity based on
five regions of the world) (the "Alexander plan")
c. Fixed membership, half appointed and half elected (the
"Vittorio plan")
8. ALAC Funding and Staffing ALAC (options)
a. Self-funded by ALAC members/At-Large Structures and
rotating secretariat
b. ICANN funded (or matching funds) and dedicated ICANN
staff/secretariat

///////////////////////////////////////////////////
(Vittorio Bertola's proposal)
Thus my idea is that we should have a Committee whose
members are selected with more than one method.

For example, let's suppose that we have a Committee whose
size is fixed at 20 members (I think you can't have less
if you want to be somewhat representative of the global
users, and more would be even more unmanageable), with one
year term (to allow more rotation and to have short terms
that also non-professionals could afford). Then you could
have 10 elected members and 10 appointed members.

The appointed members could be selected by one of the
following methods:
- appointed each year by 10 different At Large Structures,
one each, selected randomly with provisions to guarantee
rotation and geographical diversity (ie at least one org
from each Region);
- nominated by the ICANN NomCom;
- nominated by an ad-hoc NomCom appointed half by the ALAC
and half by the Board.

The other members would be elected according to the
following scheme:
- all At Large Structures supply their individual members
to a general individual membership of a sort of
"supporting organization", which I
called ALMO (Membership Organization); the various
Structures take care about identity verification as they
already possibly do, perhaps
with some minimum method requirements and some random
verifications by the ALMO itself;
- the ALMO manages to hold online elections for 2
representatives in the ALAC from each Region;
- the ALMO also elects a small panel, with the only
purpose of running the organization and managing the
elections;
- as an option, the panel elects its Chairman, who can be
the 21st member of the ALAC if we want to break parity.

The ALAC would then elect its Chairman, its Board liaison,
and its NomCom members (which I still hope will be in the
number of four).

In this schema, the ALMO would be a very simple and low
cost organization - no mass physical mailings, no direct
customer care, just some online resources, a small budget
for common expenses and election costs, and possibly a
Secretariat person supplied by ICANN, who could in fact be
the same person devoted to the ALAC. (At least one staff
person for At Large support is needed in any case.)

So you would still have an individual membership, but it
wouldn't be the ICANN membership - it would be the
membership of an external super-partes organization with
which ICANN could have an MoU. There would be online
elections to satisfy partly those who look for online
democracy, but they would be managed by an external
organization, thus ICANN would not directly have to
support the burden of making them practically work, and
the related criticism. I think that these two points might
help in overcoming the Board's extreme doubtfulness in
accepting to have online elections again - personally, I
think that it is important to have elections.

Of course, such elections would elect half of a Committee
which in turn would elect one non-voting Board member - so
I can't see how even the worst and heavily captured or
unrepresentative elections could seriously endanger
ICANN's effectiveness. On the other hand, the concept of
online elections would at least be accepted inside ICANN,
and would allow to build a starting point from which, once
the mechanism is up and running, we could try to extend
the number of elective positions in the organization.

What do you think about this? Of course we have
intermediate alternatives - for example, we can recommend
a fully elective composition of the ALAC, and see how the
ERC reacts; it might not be a bad idea. We should also
think at some ideas about identity verification
mechanisms.

////////////////////////////////////////////////
(Alexander Svensson's proposal)
The ALAC itself consists of 10 Committee members, 2
members from each At Large region. This helps to ensure
regional diversity, while at the same time keeping the
Committee at a workable size. An absolutely necessary
precondition to be accepted by user organizations is that
the Committee members are not selected by the ICANN Board
or Nominating Committee, but by the user organizations
themselves - organized in an At Large Council of User
Organizations. Almost no user organization is willing to
lend its name and credibility to a Committee when it is
unable to decide on its composition. On the other hand,
both ICANN and the user community have an interest in
ensuring that the user organizations are genuine
membership organizations and neither one man shows nor
commercial corporations.

Both user organizations created specifically "for" ICANN
and those that already deal with other Internet issues are
invited to become a member of the At Large Council,
provided that they fulfil the criteria mentioned in the
section 5 about ALAC rights and duties. The criteria for
new user organizations are not checked by ICANN, but by
the ALAC itself.

The ALAC members are directly elected by the user
organizations of each region. In each region, every user
organization in the At Large Council has a vote. User
organizations with more than 500 members receive one
additional vote, those with more than 5000 members two
additional votes. Each organization needs to have at least
25 members to join the At Large Council. The Council and
ALAC members are elected without
intervention by Nominating Committee and ICANN Board. The
10 elected ALAC members - two from each region - elect
their own Chair from among themselves.

Organizations with regional substructures, e.g. national
chapters, are counted as one large organization if they
present a unified perspective or as several small
organizations if each of the regional organizations has
its own
decision-making process sufficiently independent from the
overall organization.

ALAC has the right:
? to send a number of delegates to the Nominating
Committee, to help choosing Board directors that also
reflect the user perspective. It is proposed to start by
using the four NomCom delegates which were called
"unaffiliated public interest persons".
? to send three voting members to the Generic Names
Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council. Policy development
takes place in different ways in the areas of country code
TLDs (mainly on a national level) and IP addresses (mainly
on a regional level), but in the area of gTLD policy
development, the GNSO is the starting point in the
bottom-up policy development process. This proposal has
already received the support of some of the DNSO (future
GNSO) constituencies at the Bucharest ICANN meeting.
? to send non-voting liaisons to the other policy
coordination bodies (i.e. ASO and ccSO) to help
communication across the SOs. In addition, the ALAC works
closely together with other Advisory Committees when
needed
? to send a non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board (like
TAC, SAC and GAC) to facilitate coordination and
communication
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