[icann-eu] How our positions "meet" Staff's proposed study

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Jeff,
thank you for your comments. I appreciate.

At 00:58 07/12/00, you wrote:
>Jefsey and all,
> > At 15:50 06/12/00, you wrote:
> > >roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com (Wed 12/06/00 at 11:55 AM +0100):
> > > > To be pragmatic, and accepting the will of the majority who sees this
> > > > short-sighted ancillary benefits as "incredibly valuable", may I ask
> > > you to
> > > > what extent do we risk to lose them in case of a mixed system (5 direct
> > > + 4
> > > > indirect). IANAL, but it seems to me that the moment you have even 
> just 1
> > > > Director elected directly, you qualify for being a membership 
> organization.
> > >
> > >that might be true in theory, but then the status karl was speaking
> > >of would depend on just one director rather than on five or nine of
> > >them. that's not pragmatic.
> >
> > We are on the verge of a study supposed to propose a consensus. This
> > means the community is to find and negotiate an equilibrium. When you
> > start a negotiation you must know what you are going to claim, what you
> > are going to refuse and what you are going to concede.
>Agreed here.
>
> > The Board for various contradictory reasons has decided a "clean-sheet"
> > study. For contradictory reasons I accept that, but I want to take 
> advantage
> > from it. Since it is really clean-sheet:
> > - what we claim is 19 @large Board Members - as our adversaries
>  Adversaries?  Why would the @large Board Members be adversaries?

Sorry for the English, I mean as "our adversaries do". Hans K and al. want 0
@large which means 18 SO Directors+1. Our starting position must be
equivalent 18 @large+1. We may negotiate down, 9 being the limit we will
not cross.

> > - what we will never concede is less than 9 @large Directors
>   We [INEGroup] would agree with this position.
>
> > - what we may partly negotiate is the way some of them are going to
> >  be elected.
>NO!  Absolutely not!  They MUST be directly elected. Full Stop!

Did I say anything else? But you have 5 areas and 9 Directors. We have
to determine the way they have to be elected: keeping 5 areas, adding
4 from a single constituency, splitting some areas... We start a thinking
and a negotiation process, I do not want to refuse discussing any good
idea or valuable compromise.

The point in starting a negotiation in a tough but open minded way is
that you do not look for acceptable but claim for rewarding solutions.

> > What Karl says we will inherit from the principle of @large Directors being
> > directly elected is not negotiable: this is our right and it would make
> > everyone question the Californian nature of the ICANN. Our atomic bomb
> > there is an alternative international ICANN as proposed by Roberto.
>
>Roberto's proposal is both not realistic and could never happen without
>allot of government's support globally.

Jeff, do you think the AFNIC (which has a French gov. Director), the deNIC
(please our German friends on this list to let us know the German Gov.
ties there), the UKNIC which is a private company operating under the
approbation of the Queen's Gov. etc. would publish something like the
CENTR document yesterday and would have unanimously signed the
contract proposal of MDR without evaluating first their local Gov. position?
Just remember that ccTLDs "Robin Hood", Peter Dengate Trush is a
former Member of the NZ delegation at the GAC. Look at the position
of China, Hong-Kong, Macao, Taiwan (ICANN/NSI succeeded in making
the Chinese reunification, even though they do not have any more
exactly the same ideogram set).

If I may sum up the position of a lot of Govs, I would use the now
famous phrase "the ICANN is an US joke Govs will replace if they are
dissatisfied with the way their country interests are treated". MDR and
the ICANN de facto acknowledgement of the alt.root mechanism and of
the coming "million of TLDs" has been well understood.

Be realistic too: the only way for the national NICs to survive is to sell
local TLDs and to share the TLD market with the ICANN (but probably
at less than @ $50.000)

 > But we may obtain it from the law or from the bylaws. If the system of
> > modification of the bylaws is changed, granting previsibility to the ICANN
> > and stability to the network, we may negotiate we may negotiate for good
> > reasons to have them granted by the bylaws *plus* serious advantages.
> >
> > - today I have not heard a single good reason. We are only talking about
> >    5+4 because this was an on the fly compromise explained by Vint Cerf,
> >    hardly a good constitutional reason.
>
>Vint is playing the old political "Soft Shoe" routine.  He is pretty good at
>it too.  He also knows that old hands like myself see through his tactics
>as well, and will not allow them to go unnoticed...

Yes. This is why I am surprised at Louis Touton letter? Was that a planned
move? An ill worded position, wanting to awkwardly support ccTLDs' position
that we (LIC, ie @large) really own the ccTLDs, I doubt it?

MINCs and al. ask themselves what it means about iDNs and if they
should apply for .jp, .kr, .cn etc... immediately to the State Department
since the ICANN actually claim they have no authority over the root.

One has also to recall that Mike needs a successor quick if he still
wants to quit. We have to follow that because we do not want the new
President to be from the USA with an US Chair.

> > - one advantage of common interest I would like to obtain is to have one
> >    ccTLD representative in every SO delegation to the BoD
>Also at least one ccTLD representative on the DNSO NC as well.

Agreed. The Working Group of the DNSO should find an appropriate way to
make sure of that. Peter de Blanc is on the NC.

> >   -  this would mean ICANN warranties us stability in the international
> >       relations (we need them as @large communities)
> >
> >    -  we would not risk that their representatives would be discounted
> >       from the @large Directors set.
> >
> >    -  we would see the ccTLD satisfied while avoiding a 4th SO and get
> >       a good alliance: ccTLDs claim (to the contrary of Louis Touton and
> >       DoC) that ccTLD legitimacy does not come from the USG but from
> >       us (as LIC: local Internet community) and they have duties to us and
> >       to the structuralisation of LICs. It would be logic we avoid a 
> conflict
> >       and find an ally with our own partners.
>
>Louis Touton is a IP Lawyer.  As such, he has a pacarious relationship
>with the truth and honesty.  He also has a vested interest in some gTLD
>registries that the ICANN board approved.

Could you substantiate that? with sources? This is of very high interest.

> > - another advantage of common interest would be the area representation.
> >    Indirect election may be a way to democratically balance the democratic
> >    unbalance of the Digital Divide. China is telling us today that with 
> India
> >    they represent 40% of the population and should claim for 7 Directors.
>
>You can't base representation on pure population, but rather on
>stakeholders which is outlined in the White Paper and the MoU.

This is not what some are starting saying in the Far-East dues to
NSI false step. We want to avoid that. So we have to quickly define
what is the @large membership, taking into account the probable
evolution in the 30 years to come. Stability please!

>As such, this would discount greatly India and China's claim or desire.

This has to be handled fairly and cleverly for everyone being happy.
Please let do not repeat the same mistake twice.

>However, this does not justify indirect election of @large directors
>in any way, contrary to some of the current ICANN Boards thinking

It depends: direct votes do not necessarily mean direct election.
Again the way the @large Directors are elected is minor vs.
their number. I may think of good reasons making Hans K. to favor
a direct election rather than some indirect solutions !!!!

Now tell me how you solve that: the first time we had 70 candidates
in Europe. Next time we will have 700 or 7000..... Direct elections
will be pure lottery.

> >    A general "rule of area representation" should be established which 
> might
> >    include an partly indirect representation system to compensate for the
> >    direct election system. But the rule should be general: as Roberto
> >    Gaetano and some NC members ask for it: the Chairman and the
> >    President should not belong to the same area. And most probably the
> >    Directors coming from the SO should not all of them be from the same
> >    Area, or should be of different areas. Incidentally that rule should 
> apply
> >    to the Study group: every area should be represented.
>
>What area these representatives come from is really irrelevant.  What
>does matter is that they have broad support.

We agree: what you name broad support, if you think from an
an international (ie. not in a Yankee or Texan) point of view is good
international basis (the technical support issues are supposed to be
assumed by SO's Directors).

> > We also
> > have the Asia/Pacific unbalance due to India and China population
> > size: we have to build for a reasonable future. They claim to have
> > already 850.000 DNs validated in China. We have to make sure that
> > Africa and South-America may protect their interests.



> > >unless i'm very mistaken, there doesn't seem to be much of a plural-
> > >ity of opinion on this list to support an indirect-election option.
> >
> > My position is neither against, nor for. We want to talk and listen.
> > Then to be tough in protecting our interests. Our interests are not
> > specifically a number of Directors or a type of election. These are
> > only a way to protect them.



> > >since ICANN's current staff and board has demonstrated that they're
> > >fairly hostile to the idea of direct elections,
> >
> > Where did you see that? They have just organized the direct elections.
> > What they say is: "to stay a stable and good solution, ICANN must
> > stay small [this I agree], who can we stay small and organize and
> > make active a constituency of hundred of thousands or millions, if
> > not billion some time, of voters? We need you to tell how you see
> > the solution. A solution can be something independent from the
> > ICANN (up to you to build it) which would get 9 seats at the board."
>
>The @large does not need to stay small as Vint Cerf desires.  Rather
>it needs to grow to as large as the number of stakeholders become.

This is what I say. ICANN is to stay small and @large to grow to
billions. Here is the problem.

>Direct election of @large board members using current electronic
>online voting technology is easily doable.

Voting is a minor issue. The issue is the communications about
elections, so billion voters are informed, educated, given a pin, may
talk with thousands of candidates, receive billions and billions of mails.
Just think about the costs and problems ICANN faced with 30.000
voters, now multiply that by 10.000 !!!

> > What they want is a practical, credible, stable and consensually
> > accepted response about associations, media, sites, press, MLs,
> > information, polling booth, (re)counts, etc... ... and the funding for it.
>
>Funding is the biggest problem ICANN faces now in all reality, although
>I personally don't see is as that big of a problem.  The problem with
>funding this is "How", not "How much".

This is exactly why they ask for the study. The study is about the "How"
if its first part say it is possible and affordable.

> > They keep saying "we are not the world government, we cannot
> > manage the world constituency without credible help and funds".
>
>Yes Vint did say something very similar to this as did Esther.  But
>the definition of "Credible" is something that is yet to be adequately
>defined.

So, says Mike. This is also why they want the world to review and
... approve.

> >>it's certainly true
> > >that conceding an indirect method (in whole or part) is more 'prag-
> > >matic'--but is that really the point?
> >
> > IMHO conceding anything before a negotiation is losing it (you shown
> > you were ready to accept losing it). But refusing to negotiate is worst
> > because the other part will decide without you and most probably
> > against you. So we must negotiate the number of Directors, from 0 to
> > 19, making clear that we will break under nine and very good reasons
> > and advantages for not having all of them directly elected.
>
>What are those reasons, Jefsey?  I don't know of any that are credible.

If they do exist Hans Kraaijenbrink and others have to present them. For
the time being my positions are the 10 points we discussed on this list
in preparing the MDR meeting. It includes the immediate departure of the
squatters and the election of 4 Directors with a single worldwide
constituency, one Director max per Area.

> > This is pragmatism: negotiation is between equals talking together.
> > Cheers,

Jefsey