AT-LARGE REVIEW 23 JUNE 2008 PARIS, FRANCE >>PATRICK SHARRY: Ladies and gentlemen, we will start soon. This afternoon's session will be interpreted into French, English and Spanish. Therefore, to follow proceedings, you will need one of those and they are in a box just behind the second pillar. So please form an orderly queue, send a friend to get two or three and we will start as soon as we can. Thank you. A reminder for anyone who has just arrived that this session will be interpreted into French, English and Spanish. And, therefore, you'll need one of these (indicating) which I can found in a box toward the back of the room. Look for confirmation from the language booths at the back. But to the best of my understanding, the channels are French 1, English 2, and Spanish 3. On the bottom of the device you will find a little channel selector. Thank you for coming. In a moment, I will hand over to Tricia Drakes, the chair of the Board Governance Committee of the ALAC working group who will start proceedings. Then we will move to the people from Westlake Consulting who will be speaking about their report, not reading it verbatim but giving us the high points. And we expect that will take about half an hour. And after that, we will open the floor to questions. Just a reminder, I think we've said this in a number of forums so far, our intention today is to help us all gain clarity and understanding of what's in the Westlake Consulting report. And we'll try to keep that as the focus. Tricia will talk about other parts of the process that will follow this. So thank you for making the time to be here today. Tricia? >>TRICIA DRAKES: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Bonjour. I haven't spoken French for problem 30 or 40 years but I'm going to have a go for at least the opening part and then I will switch to English. The review process -- Bear with me on channel 4. I'm getting a wave from the back. Am I going too fast? Let me introduce myself. My name is Tricia Drakes, and I am from the ICANN board and I currently chair the governance committee working group, which is looking at the at-large review. Let me first start by saying something about this process which you can find detailed on the ALAC review page. The revisions of ALAC have been part of ICANN's commitment to constantly pursue improvements. The board appointed Westlake Consulting as the firm entrusted with the task of undertaking an independent assessment following consultation of the Internet community, Westlake provided a draft report that is now submitted for discussion. And we hope this report will soon be available in several languages. Back to English. It shows willing, and to say by the end perhaps I will be less rusty. So this week we have today's workshop which is really to gain an understanding of the Westlake report. And just for clarity, the Westlake report is produced completely independently of ICANN and the working group. So for all of us, it's understanding the report. On Wednesday at this time, there's a second workshop when we begin the conversation about what happens next and the way forward. In addition and with thanks to the other working group members who came up with this idea, we are going to have two informal office hour sessions, the idea it was going to be in a win bar in a quiet corner elsewhere and the plan for that is really to allow those who are shy or whose schedule who does not permit to gather with working group members and talk about the report and gain points. In fact, they will then be summarized -- that's the comments -- put in the public comment area. Today is comments. Wednesday is review, on Wednesday in Hemingway and another in the corner of the foyer. And what happens next, the Westlake report that we're going to hear more about in a moment gives the Westlake independent view of the ALAC review. But we as the working group on behalf of the BGC need to hear everyone's views and yesterday at the ALAC meeting we began hearing some of those so they are wide and diverse. The consultation on the draft report -- and this is just giving input on the draft submitted pre the meeting -- having listened has been extended by two weeks until the 11th of July. Westlake who through this process and the working group help support Denise Michel and staff in getting the report produced and Westlake worked amazingly hard to reach the deadlines we set. So I'm sure, Richard, you and the team between the 11th and 18th of July will be working really hard to produce the final report. We then have the usual public comment period, and we as the working group then begin our work in earnest in terms of deliberating and trying to pull together the recommendations. The plan is then to have an interim report produced for the Cairo meeting, and it is the equivalent in terms of the GNSO review. And I think it was in Puerto Rico but there was one meeting where we said this is our current thinking. It is not the draft report. It is not a final report. But this is -- this is where we are now and that is what we planned to do for the Cairo meeting and then produce the final report for the March 2009 meeting. So today time for Westlake to present the report and hear what's next, time for the conversation to start, to, in fact, increase our understanding about what's in it and why you've said what you've said. There are two links. One is the public participation Web site, and we encourage -- and we encourage the participants online listening to this to submit comments there. We also have a new ALAC review web page, again, which is written there. And this is posted -- or it is about to be posted. And that's a living, breathing document which sets out the terms of reference for the independent review, for the working review -- sorry, for the working group, little tiny reports that we've called communique but we want to call something else of our meetings, so what we've discussed. And we intend that to be a place that you follow to see what's happening there. So with that introduction, I think it's time to pass over to Richard and back to Patrick who is kindly moderating today. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Tricia. Just while the people from Westlake get themselves set up, I would just like to reinforce what Tricia said about that link there, which is just about to disappear, and, of course, that was all part of our careful stage management. If, in fact, you didn't manage to memorize that address you can find it on the Paris meeting site. If you go to "schedule" and then find the meeting that we're in now, you'll see that there is the opportunity for public participation. It is the same as it is for all of the other meetings on the meeting schedule for Paris. If you go there and log on or register if you haven't registered beforehand, you will be able to make comments in the chatroom that's there. When we come to the comments from the floor part of today's proceedings, I will be monitoring that chatroom in addition to taking comments through the microphones. So please feel free, if you'll rather write a succinct comment into the chatroom, to do that. And we'll certainly do our best to make sure they become part of our conversation as well as the stuff that happens with the microphone. We also hope that those people who can't be here physically but are, in fact, participating remotely in places all over the world will be able to make their views known through that chat page as well. Richard, are you right to go? >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, bonjour, madames and monsieur. Thank you for being here this afternoon. Could I just introduce the team from Westlake Consulting. I'm obviously Richard Westlake. Could I introduce Colin Jackson and Alick Wilson who are here with me and we have two other team members who didn't travel here to Paris who have been working with us through the period of the review. Ladies and gentlemen, Tricia has given you some of the background about our review and how we went about it. You will see through here -- you will see as we work our way through here that the process we have been engaged in goes back approximately one year, that in August last year we were invited -- or we responded to the request for proposals that was posted on the ICANN Web site. We responded by the close in August, and were advised then in January and finally confirmed in February that we had been selected and appointed as the independent reviewer for this process. And as Tricia said, we have worked very hard through the process to meet the deadlines required of us by ICANN and by the review working group. The aims of the review you'll be familiar with. We don't need to spend too much time on these. But it is worth just having a quick look, that there were two key questions that we were asked to comment on, which are firstly whether the organization, the ALAC has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure and, secondly, if so, whether there was any change in the structure or its operations that were desirable to improve its effectiveness. Now, in addition to that the terms of reference that we received had approximately 50 or 55 additional questions, to a degree that was reflected in our report, that we were required to address all the questions so some of them are of the strategic nature, some of them are at a much more detailed level. That will be apparent for those of you who have had the chance to have a look at our report. We sought to gain as much information as we possibly could. The three of us, Alick, Colin and I came to the ICANN meeting in Delhi where we interviewed a large number of people. We subsequently interviewed a lot of other people, both by telephone and by e-mail. In addition to that, we went to a lot of effort and the ALAC staff went to a lot of effort to try to solicit comments and submissions from as many people as possible. There were invitations posted on the ICANN Web site. There were e-mails put on our at-large e-mail lists. We directly e-mailed a lot of people. There were then reminder sent and we would like to thank all of those people. Some of our invitations were in other than English because you will see from the discussion that we will have shortly we think other than English is a vitally important part of the ALAC's way of operating. We received quite a lot of comments, submissions, replies to specific questions. We received very, very few in anything other than English. Those that we did have, we had translated for us in order to make sure that we understood fully. In addition to that, of course, we carried out a lot of objective research through the ICANN Web site, other materials available online, other historic information in order to allow ourselves to get the background that we could. The assurance that we gave to everybody that we interviewed was that we would respect the confidentiality, that we would probably use -- we might quote some of the comments that they made to us, but we would not identify -- we would not cite the individuals who had made those comments. We were trying thereby to make sure that people could be as open and as Frank with us as they possibly could. Now what I have got here is some of the comments that were made to us about how they see the At-Large Advisory Committee. And I stress these are comments that have been made to us. They are not our views. I will let you read them. "It has always puzzled me whether ALAC has any agenda." Secondly, "ALAC is our conscience." Thirdly, I'll let you read that one. Fourthly, "the interim ALAC" -- and you can read that one as well. And, fifthly, which we thought was very significant was that "the ALAC has made significant improvement over the last one to two years." Now, as I say, that is a range of the comments that were made. >> WENDY SELTZER: For the benefit of those in the back of the room that can't read -- >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Would you like me to read the other ones to you? >> WENDY SELTZER: Also for the translation. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: The ones I didn't read were "the ALAC is a complete waste of time." And "the interim ALAC took only the privileges and traveled free all over the world." As I say, these are the comments of other people to us. Now, from here, can I just give you our overview of how we see the ALAC as a result of our research. We see that the ALAC has two complementary roles. The first one is that it provides a means for the individual Internet user to participate in the activities of ICANN. And, secondly, it provides a channel for ICANN's accountability to the community. Eric, do you want to ask a question now or can I take questions at the end? >> (Speaker off microphone.) >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: The copyright will come off. It is posted on the Web site now for the public. It is accessible to the public. It will then belong -- sorry, the question was the note that our slides today have the copyright symbol on, that will be coming off because, of course, this report will belong to the review working group of the board when we submit it. Thank you. We believe it is the ALAC's method of operating is consistent with the values of ICANN itself. That is, it is a bottom-up consensus-driven organization. And we see both of those factors as absolutely crucial to its effective operation. One of the absolutely key findings that we came to, which is probably not a surprise to most people, but I think it is very important in the context in which we have presented our report and our recommendations, is that we see the ALAC today as a new organization. Until 2007, that is until about a year ago, the interim ALAC had, of necessity, to have a focus on building the institution, of building the RALOs, of building the at-large structures in order to get the entire structure in place. We believe that now we're in a position with what we refer to as ALAC 1.0 which is the ALAC looking ahead whose role is to provide valuable input into the ICANN's policy development, to provide initiatives, to assist in the outreach, to allow that participation -- or to assist the accountability of ICANN to the broad community of Internet users. So where we came to from that was a lot of the comments that were made to us about what had happened in the ALAC, what the ALAC had done or, in many cases, what the ALAC had not done was perhaps of questionable relevance in terms of the future. So a lot of our recommendations of necessity were based on judgment about what the ALAC could, would and should do in the future rather than trying to extrapolate the history from the last five years. We've had a very close look at the history. We've analyzed the history. We've attempted to understand the history. In fact, my two colleagues themselves have had a long involvement in one form or another with ICANN, so they also have been part of that history. But in terms of preparing our recommendations, preparing our report, we had to make a judgment call on which bits of history were relevant and which, in fact, we needed to work from and make projections about behavior in the future. So as I say, our review as far as possible in order to be useful rather than to be a history has been as far as we possibly can make it forward-looking trying to provide recommendations and commentary rather than dwelling too heavily on the past. In the recommendations we have made, for those of you who have had the chance to read our draft report or at least to read the summary of the draft report that is on the ICANN Web site, you will see that there is a range of recommendations that we have made. In essence, we've probably made about four or five what we would refer to as strategic recommendations and the rest of the recommendations are more operational or detail which we think go towards building a more effective ALAC, but, in fact, are probably not at the strategic level of the four that I would like to talk about now over the next few minutes. The first one related to the ALAC's structure. We identified about eight different options, most of which were the result of what people had proposed to us, recommended to us, suggested to us or asked us about. These ranged from abolishing the ALAC altogether, from merging the ALAC with either another body within the ICANN such as becoming a part of the NCUC as a constituency within the GNSO. Or alternatively, absorbing or merging with an organization outside ICANN such as The Internet Society, ISOC. One of the other suggestions was that the ALAC should be changed from an Advisory Committee to a Supporting Organization. In the end, we believe that the rationale for forming the ALAC as an Advisory Committee still prevailed. We believe that is still the valid position, the valid structure for it. We have recommended that the status quo in that should continue. However, for a number of reasons that we'll come to in just a minute, we have recommended some minor changes to that. But overall, we felt there has been a lot of time, thought and effort going into building the ALAC as it is today. It's had one year approximately in its final form. We believe it should be given the chance now to demonstrate the effectiveness of the structures that are there today and that there was no compelling alternative reason. One of the other points, I suppose, was that given the focus there has been on structures and form, we were -- we felt it was appropriate and we felt there was actually a role within the ALAC to focus on the substance of what the ALAC wants to achieve, rather than the form of rebuilding something yet again, which may or may not be better than currently exists, but without having yet got the basis to find out whether what they currently have works. So we have recommended, as I say, the status quo as an advisory committee. One suggestion we have made is that whereas the ALAC chair currently is appointed for a one-year term, we believed from the perspective of good governance, from the perspective of actually being able to get into the job, to achieve things, and to take -- to lead the thought processes and to guide the committee through, we believe the term of the chair of the ALAC should be extended from one to two years. The second aspect that we looked at relates to the geographic structure of the ALAC. Now, the geographic structure of the ALAC reflects the geographic structure of ICANN, but that's beyond our brief, so we have restricted our comments to the ALAC, and whereas the geographic structure of ICANN may well reflect Internet usage in particular five or six years ago, when that structure was decided, today there are some very serious imbalances. For example, the regional structures of ICANN and ALAC are now completely misrepresentative of population distribution, and today also of Internet usage distribution. Excuse me. Yes. >>THOMAS ROESSLER: I've got a question. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Hold on. >>THOMAS ROESSLER: Thomas Roessler, perpetrator of evils on the interim ALAC, speaking in a purely personal and historic capacity here. Just a quick question about the scope point of this one. You sound -- you started out saying you're reviewing this point from the perspective of the ALAC. Are you suggesting that there should be a different kind of geographic distribution for the ALAC and the rest of ICANN? I mean, the trouble I'm having here is that I think the only decision, really in scope for an ALAC review is whether or not ALAC should be consistent with the rest or not. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you, Thomas. I think your question is very valid. No, we wouldn't suggest that the distribution should be different from that of the ICANN but perhaps what we are trying to suggest is some changes to the geographic distribution within the ALAC, which, by implication, we would say if ICANN is ever looking at its geographic structures, it might wish to make sure there is a consistency between the two. But we didn't think we should restrict ourselves in our review of the ALAC from recommending what we saw as an appropriate geographic structure. The key driver for us in this area was the underrepresentation, in particular, of Asian Internet usage. Today, usage in China, for example, Internet usage in China, is greater than in the United States, but making this -- compounding this even further is that the level of Internet penetration -- in other words, the percent of the population which uses the Internet compared with the potential population -- in the United States and in Europe, that is certainly plateauing. It is reaching a level of about 70% of the available audience. Whereas in parts of Asia, in particular, the level which is already larger than it is in the United States is still only at about 15 to 20% potential penetration. So the disparities, the imbalance is only going to grow further over the next few years, which is why we felt it was something which we simply should not ignore. Because in Asia, in particular, there is the potential for Internet usage to double, to quadruple before it starts to plateau or to reach any form of saturation in the United States and in parts of Europe, it can really only grow by another 50% to reach a hundred percent of the potential total -- sorry, madam, did you want to have a question? >>PATRICK SHARRY: Can we have some -- ah, thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, that's absolutely fine. We need to get the microphone to you, and you need to stand up. Otherwise, it's difficult for the scribes to be able to follow, and it will make everyone's life much better if you introduce yourself as you start to speak. Thanks. >>JEANETTE HOFMANN: Jeanette Hofmann, London School of Economics. I have two questions. One, what are the implications for Africa, other than you lose seats, because less people in Africa today and also tomorrow will use the Internet. That's my first question. And the second concerns the options you've just introduced. I wonder whether all these -- whether you depict all the options recommended by people you talked to, because I've been told that people also suggested an option where users would vote, for example, and I couldn't see that in your list. Thank you. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you for the question. Have you had a chance to look at the report on the -- you have? Now, was this users voting for -- for what? Users voting for members of the board? >>JEANETTE HOFMANN: Yes. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Yes? That's one question which has been raised with us. Now, our review was a review of the At-Large Advisory Committee. Individual Internet users, the question of whether they should vote members of the board we believe, in fact, bypassed our review, was beyond the scope of our review of the At-Large Advisory Committee. We think it's a very valid question. At present, as I say, we believe that the structures have been there for only about one year. We believe that there has been a lot of work going in to ensuring that the RALOs, as they stand, the at-large structures beneath them, and the ALAC, form a proxy, to as far a degree as possible, for the at-large individual Internet user, but at present, we believe that it would be a huge structural change and a huge administrative change to move to what you have just asked. But we also believe that it was probably beyond the scope of our actual review. >>JEANETTE HOFMANN: [Speaker is off microphone] >>PATRICK SHARRY: Hang on. Hang on. Because we're being interpreted and because we're being scribed unless you have the microphone, you really won't be heard. >>JEANETTE HOFMANN: Just for clarification, I didn't ask for your opinion or what you think about these options, just whether you listed all of them suggested to you. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: No. I think in reality, there were probably a few that we didn't. We tried to give a sense of the scope of the recommendations and the options that were given to us. But to try to give as broad a representation of that as possible. In relation to the role of Africa, we did see that as having quite a distinct position, and we haven't suggested the reduction of any geographic region. What we have suggested -- in fact, as you'll see in our report -- is that the five RALOs should continue as they are at present, but there should be some -- there should be some -- what should I say? Acknowledgment. Justification made -- acknowledgment made of the huge imbalance in relation to Asia, and that Asia, in fact, should have a higher -- a larger number of members on the ALAC, and we've suggested two new members be appointed to the ALAC and that they be appointed by the Nominating Committee. But with the specific aim of providing the regional focus from different parts of Asia, given that currently the Asia-Pacific region represents about 63 or 64% of the world's population. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Could you just hang on. There's a couple more questions. >>ROBERT GUERRA: Hi, this is Robert Guerra. I have a question -- it's a comment that I made yesterday too. In regards to the regional balance, the point I raised yesterday is that there's a larger discussion taking place at ICANN in regards to the regions, and, you know, other colleagues will comment on other things, but I think that, you know, was any comment made in regards to this would mean that at-large would be the first one to change its regional structure? And my comments yesterday was that we should be consistent with other ICANN structures and we could be at a disadvantage if we changed? So that's one question. In terms of factual, which I'll leave to you, is: You know, are there any sources, such as ITU, number of Internet users and others, that lead you to conclude the numbers for Asia-Pacific? Because population, of course, is a number, but the number of Internet users, broadband users, and how users are consulted and democracies in the world are very different in different parts of the world, and so I hope you put that into consideration, in looking as to regional balance. Thank you. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Well, thank you for those comments. I think if I could just answer that particular one, yes, we did do quite a lot of work trying to get sources for Internet usage. Unfortunately the statistics we found were reasonably disparate. There was a range of them. But the big picture was quite clear, and we have, in fact, sourced some of our references within our report, if -- for those who care to read it, but it was the big-picture imbalances that we were trying to address. And certainly, yes, we do recognize that if the ALAC does choose to do this, it would be the first. We didn't believe that that should hold us back from recommending an adjustment to the regional structures. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Hang on just -- we had intended -- perhaps foolishly -- that we would go through the report and then take questions. I actually think that where we are now is probably a better place to be, the wisdom of the crowd, and we might just pause for a minute and catch up on the questions. I can already see about five hands there. So we'll do that. Before we do that, one of the things that I think is truly global is that everybody knows their own name, and, therefore, when they say t they feel they can say it very quickly. And no one else hears it. So when you're introducing yourself, please take a big breath and say your name slowly. That will make it much easier for the scribes and also for the interpreters down the back. So to some questions. Roberto. >>ROBERTO GAETANO: So you already said my name. Do I -- Roberto Gaetano, vice chairman of the board. Just a very quick question. I understand the rationale for increasing the representation from Asia-Pacific. I don't understand the rationale for proposing that those additional members will be nominated by the Nominating Committee and not chosen by the Internet community -- by the Asia-Pacific Internet community. Do you have any quick answer to this? >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Roberto, yes, I do. The first thing that we looked at was should we, in fact -- and one of the recommendations that was put to us was should there, in fact, be some new RALOs formed, so you might have six, you might have seven RALOs. We concluded that at present, a lot of work has gone into building the structures. As we've said again, let the structures that are there grow and develop. As far as the representation -- representative nature of the RALO went, at present I think the Asia-Pacific one would be quite noticeable in not yet having a maturity in terms of one or two ALSs, per country, given the number of countries across Asia, so we felt that was probably not yet representative. Does that answer the question? Thank you. >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: Okay. Deep breath. My name is Annette Muehlberg. I'm a member of the At-Large Advisory Committee, and former chair. >> She is not Milton Mueller. [Laughter] >> Give the lady a break. [Laughter] >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: This is really great. Milton is he here? I haven't seen him. Okay. But it will be fun if you then the next time, you know, replace Milton by Annette. Okay. My name is Annette Muehlberg. Muehlberg. All right. [Laughter] >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: Close. Close. Okay. We stop that and we can go on on that later. Well, I don't -- my French is not good enough, I guess. Roberto took one of my questions, but I like the intention of getting closer to the locals and say we should really get to a better representation and also look at after how many people are actually there. That's a good thing. I don't really like the idea of having NomCom people. I think it would also help to go a little deeper in this whole issue of regional representation and look a little closer. We also have in Europe lots of trouble with these huge regions and languages and all this, so I think there is something to work on. But why I raised my hand is what really irritated me was your sentence -- and I want to be sure that I got it right -- that you said -- excuse me. I want to -- no, I can't look at it anymore. That you said the users' vote on the board was not in the scope of the review, so that would be some different issue than the issue on dealing with the At-Large Advisory Committee and if that is so, then this might be an explanation why history starts at 2003 and not at the beginning of the ICANN, where actually users representation would be half of the board, and this actually again would be very helpful to analyze much more closely, because that is actually what we are dealing with all the time: What is the right representation, how can we organize that, how much impact do users have, and coming from Germany, I can assure you that this is a structural issue which has to be taken into account. Because people already voted and they thought they would have someone on the board. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Annette, Danke schön. If I can answer your question this way. Perhaps the point that we have been trying to make is that we think the ALAC has a lot to offer ICANN. We believe that its focus needs to be on contributing to the development of quality policy. There has been a lot of institution building. There have been a lot of work going into putting together the structures that are there today. I think if we were starting from the beginning, if we were building from today from nothing, what you have suggested might well be where we would have come to. But as it is today, there -- we see a real need for the ALAC to engage itself in the substance of ICANN's work, which is policy relating to the Internet's addressing and numbering system. >>SEBASTIAN RICCIARDI: Hello. My name is Sebastian Ricciardi. I'm a member of the Internet Society chapter in Argentina. I have a few questions for you. One is built on what Annette just said. We were discussing if giving voting to the users on the board was or wasn't on the scope and yet you specifically recommended that users keep their liaison role without voting rights on the report. And the second one is something -- I think it's -- and please, I'm -- this is trying to be constructive, not criticism, but I think something is missing in the report, because I think somehow I would like to see how the ALAC is using the mechanism it has to influence in the policy development process, and I didn't see it there. I mean, how they choose the NomCom members, how the NomCom members perform, how they engage in the different policy discussions. If we have a few tools, how are we using them? >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you for the question. I think if I could just go back to -- and perhaps the bridge between your question and Annette's was: Yes, we did address the issue of the ALAC liaison to the board, and I'll come to that in my next slide, if I may, and we can discuss that there. As far as this -- the voting that you've talked about, as I said, yes, we did see that that was outside the scope. We think it would be a perfectly valid question to ask in relation to, for example, the forthcoming review of the board itself. Now, that might be the place to do it. Or if at some stage in the future, ICANN decided to have a review of the entire structure rather than just of one of the individual components of it. We also did, in fact, in our report, we did address some of the issues around the working groups, how the ALAC engages and some of the tools that it uses. And some of the tools we have suggested it might use in the future. >>PATRICK SHARRY: We're balancing here two sorts of completeness. One is making sure that we get the complete views of everyone in the community and the other thing is giving Richard the chance to complete his presentation. And so what I'd propose that we do is we've got a question here from Vanda. I know there's two questions down the back. At that stage, we'll just press "pause" and we'll let Richard go back to his presentation and then allow some more question time in a moment. Because it would be a shame if we ran out of time before we ran out of Richard's presentation. So Vanda, those two hands that I've acknowledged before, and then back to Richard. And if you can make your question as concise and brief as possible, that would be really useful as well. Thanks. >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Okay. Thank you. My name is Vanda -- well, they got it. Yeah. Okay. My name is Vanda. I will keep my question just for regional balance. It's not a question. It's something I raised yesterday is: Once you decide to send to the Nominating Committee to choose people, I believe we need to address more specific which part of the Asia-Pacific we should bring it, because I believe that, you know, in the Arabic world, for instance, there is no many ALSs and so one, it's hard -- but we need to get people from those regions. So the division inside the Asia-Pacific must be clear and addressed to the NomCom to make it really fair. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Richard, would you like a right of reply for that or should we move to the next question. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Should I take it very quickly? I mean I would agree with what Vanda has said, which is I mean we certainly think that there needs to be a lot of consideration given to how you would split Asia in terms of making those nominations. One of the reasons that we would suggest that the Nominating Committee was the appropriate mechanism was (a) it should be relatively simple to implement without major structural change and major distraction from the work of the ALAC. Secondly, the ALAC itself, remember, appoints almost a third of the total members of the Nominating Committee. So there is the ability to influence, to put good people onto the Nominating Committee, and to, therefore, hope for good appointments from there onto the ALAC. >>FATIMATA SEYE SYLLA: My name is Fatimata Seye Sylla and I want to say something about regional representation. I would tend to agree with Jeanette that was talking about this earlier, but I agree with adding members for Asia, in terms of the numbers, because the numbers have increased a lot, but in parallel, I would like to suggest that there be some mechanism so that you can appoint a number of people on the basis of a criterion to be defined now, that could be revised perhaps later but that would be defined now. Say for Asia, you've taken the example of America saying it's much more than that. Therefore, we should have two extra members for Asia. So when is another region going to be allowed to have another member? Do we have to reach that level, that number, for another member? I think we need to start thinking now of a mechanism for changing the numbers. Thank you. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you for your question. I would agree with you -- or I'm pleased you agree with our thought -- our thinking in relation to a new member for Asia. Really, the reason that we had suggested it was just the overwhelming disparity of the size of Asia and an Asian usage in comparison to any other region. We thought the moment you start taking that down and looking at other regional representation really you're going to start distorting the entire structure and again, take the focus away from the ability of the ALAC to contribute to policy. So we see this not as an end in itself, the regional representation, but as a means to an end in order to get a balance of input and a balance of perspectives at the ALAC. I would suggest that by having two members appointed on behalf of Asia, in addition to the current structure of the ALAC, is probably not a long-term solution, which is why we have suggested that the overall role of the RALOs and the position of the RALOs in the structure be reviewed again at the next time that the ALAC as a whole is subject to an independent review. Now, under the bylaws, each of the major elements of ICANN should be reviewed ideally, if possible, at a three-year interval. We're looking forward to, say, three years from now, and would suggest that in three years' time, the overall role of the RALOs, whether they themselves have a continuing role, whether, in fact, there might be some way of having a broader, if you like, individual user participation without that extra layer of the RALOs is something that might be considered. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Hi, Richard. This is Evan Leibovitch. I am the chair of the North American ALAC and it is known as NARALO, and I mention that because it is unfortunate this report was only released last week making it very difficult for most ALSs to respond in time for the meeting. Fortunately, we have some very effective communication systems and most of our ALSs are native English speakers so we had the opportunity to debate it in length over the last week. And the result of that discussion is the following statement that I make on behalf of the entire north American region. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Can I just stop you and ask whether this is a question of clarification and understanding of the report or a position about how we should move forward? Because today we're very interested in questions of understanding about the report. There will be a session on Wednesday where this might actually be more appropriate. I will let you be the judge, though. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: I hope you don't mind, I would like to go ahead with this. We did have a chance to go through the actual wording and everything, and this is the statement we ended up coming up with. NARALO by consensus agreement without a single dissent urges ALAC to take every measure possible to encourage rejection of the report of the 2008 ALAC review by the ICANN board and other members of the ICANN community. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Can I stop you there because today is really not -- that's not the purpose of today's meeting. On Wednesday I will be very happy for you to read the report and speak to it in as many as you would like to. But today we are really about questions of understanding. Richard, we'll move back to you and let you work through the rest of your slides, please. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you, Patrick. Look, if I could just very briefly respond to Evan, we have put our recommendations together to board. It is a recommendation to the board. It is not a recommendation, as you know, to the ALAC. There will be a review and comment period starting, as Patrick says, on Wednesday. And, therefore, anybody who wishes to put in their own comments on our position as Tricia invited in her statement earlier on is welcome to do so. We have never expected that everybody would be satisfied with everything that we have said. We have suspected that somewhere, somehow, someone might wish to take issue with some of our recommendations. [ Laughter ] Colin, can we move on? >> Yes. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Moving on then, the third area that we addressed, the third strategic area that we addressed was that of the board liaison from the ALAC. The way that we see it is that the role of the board members is to make decisions in the best interests, what they perceive to be the best interest of the ICANN. The role of the liaisons is to advise on behalf of the organizations of the Advisory Committees that they are the representative of. If you read the bylaws, it is an obligation on board members to act in what they believe to be the best interests of ICANN as a whole and they are specifically required not to act in what they believe to be the interests of the organization that has nominated them. We believe that the ALAC has the greatest ability to influence by remaining in the position of a liaison. We also would like to just put on record the way that we perceive the role of the board. We believe the role of the board -- and it is actually stated and implied both in the bylaws, in the rules of the procedure of the ALAC, is that there is a consensus-building process that the role of the board of ICANN is that of a governance board, like a fiduciary board. It is not in the role of, for example, city hall, local government which is a "I win, you lose," "I have seven votes, you have six votes, I win, you lose." The governance board body aims to make decisions based on building consensus. We believe that an advisor -- as a liaison, an advisor to the board has the ability to participate fully, has the ability to influence and, in fact, has a requirement under the ALAC's rules of procedure to work to build consensus. We believe by doing that, they're able to do that but at the same time to act in the great interest of the ALAC as a whole and not to have that role or that position diluted as we believe it could be if the ALAC liaison were to become a full member of the board. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Richard, we might just go a little bit further and get through more slides and then take some time for questions. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: All right, thank you. So we've recommended that the board representative from the ALAC should remain in the role of a liaison. We have also since the informal discussion that we had yesterday with the ALAC recommended one other change which will be in our final report, is not in our draft report. And that is that the role of the liaison should reflect that of the role of the chair of the ALAC and, again, should be a two-year appointment and not an annual appointment. We believe it's really quite important that the liaison should have the chance to play a full part to get to know the way the board is working and to participate over a two-year period. A one-year period is a very short period of time. The fourth area on which we have made some observations and some recommendations really stems from some observations we've noticed in the last few months that even in the period since we began the substance of our review which is only four months ago, ICANN has made some significant progress in terms of providing internal resource support for the ALAC. You'll note that, of course, the dedicated staffing has gone from one to three since February. We believe, however, that that needs to go further. We believe that there needs to be dedicated support paid by ICANN, employed by ICANN and we have recommended up to one full-time employee per region. So that would be up to a total of five full-time employees. We believe that that would allow the ALAC as a whole to engage far better in development of policy positions, to analyze policy, to write policy positions, recognizing that the members of the ALAC are like all the other governance bodies; they are voluntary positions. There is a limit on the amount of time and commitment that those members can put in. So we've recommended that they increase support. We've recommended that as a part of that, that the chair of the ALAC should negotiate with ICANN a support agreement so that while those people would be employed by ICANN and on the payroll of ICANN, there would be a service level agreement -- in other words, an agreement with performance targets -- for the support that they would provide to the ALAC. And the third recommendation that we have made here is that there should be more and faster translation. It has certainly been our intention that our report, for example, should be made available to the At-large community in all the main languages which are used throughout the at-large structures. Tricia has commented on that, and we think it is absolutely vital that there be far more and faster translation of key, important documents in order not only to inform the At-large community but also to provide better community and faster opportunity for people throughout the world to participate in ICANN's positions and ICANN's decision-making. So those are essentially the four key strategic recommendations we've made. Tricia has outlined where to from here. As I said after Evan's comment, we do believe -- we accept that there will be different responses, different reactions, different views wanting to be made. To be quite honest, we welcome and encourage those. We have provided what we believe on the basis of our analysis to be an appropriate set of recommendations and observations. We have backed those up with the evidential basis we have found. If you read our report, you'll see the basis on which we have made our recommendations. All I would like to suggest to people in making your own commentary that you make sure from doing from having read the report we have written. And when you do other comments or perhaps even counter views to ours that you provide the basis on which you are making those comments. We've got the two workshops here. Tricia will then take ownership with the review working group of our final report next month after we've submitted that. And from there on, the report -- the copyright notice will come off, the report will belong to the Board Governance Committee review working group and then it will be open for a significant amount of comment. Madames and monsieurs, merci. [ applause ] >>PATRICK SHARRY: Now I know we will have lots of hands. So if you could make your question as succinct, short, concise as possible and Richard, the same for your replies, please. >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: My name is Wolfgang Kleinwächter. I'm from the University of Aarhus and member of EURALO, an at-large structure. I want to commend on your voice and both arguments here that you say the vote is with for parliament. So it is much better to give advice, which makes it more independent to have a vote which then, you know, denies you to be a representative of your constituency. If I take this argument, then consequently we have to consider whether the representatives of the three Supporting Organizations should have a vote. Consequently, they should also become liaisons to the board and then the NomCom should nominate 15 voting members because this is the only -- I'm the vice chair of the nomination committee at the moment. Because this is then the only neutral organization which really can select people which have, you know, no direct relationship to constituency which would avoid [inaudible] to represent us. But it means this is totally inconsistent what you propose. Either the At-large community is treated as a constituency on equal rights with other Supporting Organizations and then they should have the same rights to send voting members to the board which would exclude it to have a voice. They certainly have a voice if they have a vote. On the other hand, then you should go further down and should propose that all Supporting Organizations nominate liaisons to the board, non-voting members to have a vote. The second point is a question. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Quickly. >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: But it is an important point. You did not consider a proposal which was discussed for years in several communities that each RALO has its own secretariat which is defined by ICANN. To nominate a staff person who is probably sitting in Marina del Rey is not very helpful for the RALO. It means to have somebody in the region which is probably also selected by the RALO itself or, you know, in cooperation with ICANN which would be much more better than to create a bigger bureaucracy which doesn't really help. What you have to have is a budget that RALOs can do work on the ground, workshops, outreach activities, studies. This is important. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Wolfgang, thank you for your comments. If you can comment on the second one first, if you look at the commitment and dedication of the three people within ICANN for the moment who are there to support the ALAC -- >> Five. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Five? Whatever number it is employed within ICANN to support the ALAC, I believe at the moment that there is every evidence that they are totally committed to supporting the ALAC and I feel that they would question -- they would challenge whether they are part of a bureaucracy because just from the interchange we've had and the communication we've had with them, they are totally committed to ensuring that the ALAC is as effective as it could be. In relation to your first question, I will be very brief -- in your relation to your first question, I don't agree with you. I believe the Supporting Organizations are involved with the doing of the actual mission of ICANN itself. The name and numbering and addressing systems are the Internet, those Supporting Organizations are the Supporting Organizations that develop policy in relation to that. I believe there is every -- every justification and every rational as it stands for those people to nominate people to the board because they can bring those perspectives. And I see no reason at all -- it was beyond the scope of our review. But I see no reason at all for the rationale that you have suggested. >> JEANETTE HOFMANN: I had another question regarding your data but now this really asks for a comment, the GNSO has constituencies that are not related to doing this. The intellectual property constituency, the business constituency, these are users like we are users. But they have a different status. So I'm not sure this is correct what you're saying. But what I actually wanted to ask concerns the suggestion that we should get more staff. I would like to know whether this is a suggestion that comes from you or whether ALAC members oral low members actually -- or RALO members actually asked for this. Because having more staff is really a mixed blessing. It also increases transaction costs. It is not only a help. It can also be in the way and problem. So that's why I'm interested where this suggestion originally comes from. Thank you. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Thank you. I think in answer to your question very briefly, it was a combination of direct comments made to us that the ALAC was very direct resource from ICANN and also the comment looking at the example as they saw of some of the other Advisory Committees where there was that dedicated staff resource that works very well, the relationship between the staff resource and the other Advisory Committee or committees. And the suggestion was -- and from some quarters that that model was one that could be transported in but it would still be paid for by ICANN. It would be a resource of ICANN but with commitments to deliver to support the ALAC. >> DARLENE THOMPSON: My name is Darlene Thompson. I am the secretariat for the North American RALO. I can tell you right now when they increase the staff from one horribly overworked person to the three, we have -- now things have improved immensely. Before we were getting absolutely no briefings. We get this huge document that not even English speakers could read and you try to go through it and then you just give up and you wouldn't be able to comment on anything. So now we've got three and they're still overworked, you know? But things are getting better. So, I mean, that is actually one of the -- I think one of the great recommendations from this report so even though it might cost a bit more, you are going to get tons more feedback from your grassroots community if that's what they actually want and that's what they say they do, so it is necessary. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: Darlene, thank you. You have just simply endorsed the recommendation we've made. Thank you. I appreciate your point of view on that. Thank you. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Hi. I just wanted to ask -- I'm not going to repeat anything I was saying before, I just wanted to ask specifically to the subject of today's meeting. Given the fact that the report is only out for a week and that you're speaking to slides, how is it very easy for people to ask about corrections? >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: I'm sorry? How is it easy to ask -- what directions do you need to ask? >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: No, if this meeting is about asking for clarifications to the report, the report has only been out to a week and you are speaking to slides. Doesn't it make it very difficulty meeting? I notice most of the questions haven't been matters of clarification. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: What we're hoping is the report we have prepared and the final report that we do prepare over the next month will be sufficiently clear. There is a workshop on Wednesday for the opportunity for comment. So I would hope if there is any need for clarification that that would be an occasion for it. But there is also the opportunity then for further commentary later. Tricia would also like to comment? >>TRICIA DRAKES: Just really to add, as I said in the beginning, really taking feedback from yesterday, the comments on the draft report -- and remember with the final report, there will be further time for comment. But the period was extended by two weeks at the request of getting feedback from yesterday for the regional organizations to be able to give input. So there is some extra time to do that and take it into account, so we did listen. Thanks to Roberto and everybody for agreeing to that. The other point is that in relation to today, this was really for Richard to go through the report as an initial run-through and then to get -- to start the process of getting feedback. This is not a say your peace now and that's it. It is really the beginning of a journey. And we've also added the working -- sorry the office hour sessions, informal ones, with working group colleagues who I totally failed to introduce in French when I was doing my session. And Patrick is going to do that in a minute. So this is a journey, and it is not until two weeks after -- two weeks from Friday that Richard and Westlake will start the process of finalizing their report and they will finalize the report a week after that and then there will be even more opportunities for comment. So this is just a very beginning -- beginning one, and to put the report on the map as well. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Tricia. I'm going to take this last comment from Wendy. Purely because we've run out of time. And I will reinforce in a moment the other ways that you can make comments. But Wendy. >>WENDY SELTZER: Well, I would love to have the last word here, I will ask a question. Sure, the question comes directly from your report. You identified two purposes that you see the ALAC, the second to be a vehicle for ICANN's accountability to the Internet community. I'm wondering if you could identify for us anything -- mechanisms that ALAC has for ensuring that accountability since you recommend against usual accountability mechanisms like giving at-large a vote on the board. >>RICHARD WESTLAKE: I think, Wendy, if you actually take a look through the report you'll see quite a number of recommendations in there. We don't see anything about a vote which reduces accountability whatsoever. What we've tried to do is to improve the breadth of the mechanisms that the effectiveness of the mechanisms that have been built up over five years to allow them, in fact, to function. Everything we have put together has been designed to try and enable the structures that have been put together to be effective in both directions, to allow the participation to encourage the ability for the -- for ICANN to be held accountable to the broad community of Internet individual users. We don't believe a vote would make -- would swing the difference on that. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Okay. Thank you, Richard. Thank you everyone for your questions. I know there are still hands up but we are out of time. Tricia, can I ask you very quickly to introduce the working group members so that people know who they are. >>TRICIA DRAKES: In terms of the working group members, we have current board members in terms -- and I'm looking at Thomas Narten, Harald Alvestrand hiding in the corner and also Jean-Jacques who I saw come in. He has obviously slipped out again. He did come in briefly when we were looking to do that. So three current board members. Then in terms of former board members, we have Karl Auerbach who has a lot of the history so I can assure you that the history has so far been coming to us. We also have Nii Quaynor and Vittorio, and I think I have everybody. Yes. And so far our task has been to get here which is really aiding Denise and staff in getting the report on time. And Roberto, the Board Governance Committee, being an additional resource and listening today there will be lots of comments, I'm sure. So thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you, Tricia. Just to confirm that this is the first of two workshops here at the Paris meeting. The next one will be on Wednesday in the Utrillo room exactly as in the schedule, at 2:00. And we would really love to see all of you and all of your friends at that meeting. That would be wonderful. And the purpose of that meeting there is actually to begin the conversation about how we might move forward, having heard what Richard said, and listening to the other perspectives of people in the community. Let me remind you there is a chance for participation through the public participation site, that there will be a public comment box where you can e-mail comments both in this first consultation period and afterwards. There will be many opportunities to make your voice heard. Before we all get up and run away, having done this for a number of ICANN meetings now, I continue to be amazed at the manual dexterity and other genius of our scribes. Thank you, to the interpreters, thank you very much. [ applause ] And to the technical people who don't often get a thank you for the hard work they do in making all this happen, our two screens and so forth. [ applause ] And final thank you from me for keeping within the spirit of today's meeting of helping us develop a better understanding of what is in the Westlake report to enable us to be well-positioned for our meeting on Wednesday. Thank you. I think we all deserve a round of applause. [ applause ]