[Comment-Dnso] Re: [bwg-core] Proposed by-law amendments

[Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com>]

> The impact of these amendments is to centralize too much power
> in the hands of the ICANN Board, at the expense of the DNSO and
> its constituents.
> 
> The amendment to Section 2(a) of Article VI-B of the Bylaws
> allows the ICANN Board to resolve disputes about which member of
> a constituency is recognized as a Names Council member. Such
> disputes should be resolved by the constituency itself,
> according to their own rules.

I would suggest that perhaps the ICANN board already has the power to do
this anyway.

According to one J. S., ICANN's board is responsible that the entity
operate according to its charter.  (Not that this board has done this,
i.e. operated according to its charter, but I'm speaking about theory, not
practice.)

Since the NC is simply part of ICANN, the board has the innate power to
reach in to *any* part of ICANN and make any changes it sees fit.

That is unless there are specific prohibitions against it in the organic
documents.

And, and here is where I really feel it is getting ugly, is that
apparently ICANN feels that even if there are specific provisions, that
the nature of the board's plenary power requires that those provisions be
read to be useless and meaningless.

Remember my argument with Sims about those sections in the ICANN by-laws
that specify that the board "shall" accept SO decisions unless certain
exceptional situations are found?  Well that language isn't there because
it looks pretty, it has meaning.  Yet ICANN says "hooey, it isn't worth
the paper it is printed on because the board has to have the power to do
what it needs to do."

(What is ironic is that the BWG proposals for a strong board vis a vis the
SO's were resisted by those who are now ICANN, yet now they want the
strong board.)

The problem with all of this stuff is that ICANN has made its self so
mutible that it makes itself look like whatever it wants to look like.

		--karl--