[Comment-Geo] Proposed Interim Policy for Geographic DiversityR

[Eric Brunner <brunner@maine.rr.com>]

Diane,

I'm resending to ICANN's comment-geo my earlier mail to the IETF's poised
list, from our (IETF POISSON WG) discussion on this feature of the bylaws.
For context I've left your original comment to the same list intact within
my reply. In my poised comment I make reference to a similar comment made
by Brian Carpenter, current chair of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

My remarks were made in the context of the POISSON WG discussion of the
PSO issue, now resolved, but they apply to any construction of regional
seating scheme and a goal of geographic diversity. Below I comment from
my perspective a week prior to the Berlin meeting, the poised traffic is
appended following.

]Would it not be simpler to give the seat designated for Region A to the
]candidate from Region A who gets the highest number of votes from members
]in Region A?  After each region has had it's representative seated, then
]the next 4 highest vote-getters (regardless of region) should be seated,
]skipping over candidates from any regions that have already seated 2
]candidates.

I'm just back from the National Indian Telecommunications Institute's 1st
conference on networking, and I simply can't attempt a guess when such a
mechanism as this will result in a native person, say the present 1st VP
of the National Congress of American Indians (Ernie Stevens) or Phil Fontaine
Principle Chief, Assembly of First Nations, or their designates, would hold
a seat reserved for North Americans.

I know some of the likely designates that NCAI and AFN will name this July
at the Summit, and ICANN shouldn't be afraid to have North American seats
marked Tribal and non-Tribal, or more generally, regional seats marked
Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

It is important to note carefully what kind of diversity is possible, whatever
mechanism is proposed. A geographic form which avoids non-metro service areas
and their populations has some obvious limitations. Like Universal Service,
or the alternative -- metro-core cherry-picking.

I'll be happy to discuss aspects of the suggestion that initially North
American, and eventually Central and South American and Pacific regional
seating, reflect both the legal and political status of their original
inhabitants, and the fundamental policy goal of ICANN -- networking in the
advancement of social and economic development.

Cheers,
Eric


>X-From_: owner-poised@lists.tislabs.com Wed Apr  7 23:37 EDT 1999
>X-Sender: brunner@maine.rr.com
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>Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 23:21:45 -0400
>To: Diane Cabell <cabell@mama-tech.com>, poised@lists.tislabs.com
>From: Eric Brunner <brunner@maine.rr.com>
>Subject: Re: Geography [was Re: a cut at a icann-based pso]
>Sender: owner-poised@lists.tislabs.com
>
>At 06:32 PM 4/7/99 -0400, Diane Cabell wrote:
>>One of the problems is the Board-wide cap in Article V Section 6 of the
ICANN
>>bylaws.  No more than half of the Board (after the SOs are seated) can
>come from
>>one region.  I understand that this was a political concession reflecting
>the US
>>commitment to shared administration of the Net; I don't know if it's
>>re-negotiable.
>
>I think the subject is worth re-negotiating, though not quite
>for reasons thus far offered. Art. V, sec. 6 states a goal:
>		
>			broad (...) representation
>
>It then establishes a mechanism to obtain this goal. Given the
>reality of North American network provisioning it is unlikely
>that any Tribal person from any North American polity will hold
>a reserved North American seat.
>
>Taking as a given that the reserve pool of non-Tribal applicants
>in North America overwhelmingly favors their selection over Tribal
>applicants for geographically allocated seats, we do have a policy
>interest in re-examination of this concession -- was it sufficient?
>
>Was it sufficient for the US to "internationalize" this asset, if
>this allows the UK, FR, SU, ... each roles, but effected a barrier
>making "mathematically unlikely" any access by Tribal governments?
>
>ICANN is an effort that still has some hope of maintaining its
>IETF derivation. Re-nogociating the suggested concession language
>is a reasonable activity and it is entirely consonant with our
>established philosophy.
>
>I share Brian's (off-shore) view, that PSO-nominations not be tasked
>to meet the Art. V sec. 6 goal, as I share Karl's view that the PSO
>has precious little policy scope, and I view the construction offered
>as obstructing achievement of a difficult goal.
>
>...
>>The Membership Advisory Committee is recommending that the Interim Board
>amend
>>V.6 to allow the different components to meet the geographic distribution
>>requirements independent of each other.  When we suggested the SOs name
>>one-per-region, we didn't realize you would have such a hard time fielding
>>non-US candidates.  A 2-per-region rule would also require amending the
ICANN
>>Bylaw.  We would like to find a solution that allows our electorate to vote
>>knowledgeably and we'd also like At-large Directors to reflect the real user
>>population as closely as practicable.  We have until April 23 to come up
>with a
>>better plan.  Any suggestions?
>
>Thanks for asking.
>
>I concure with many who view the ASO and DNSO as having both a larger
>policy scope than the PSO, and different, even less limited applicant
>pools in more regions than North America and Europe. I suggest that the
>MAC recommend to the ICANN IB that at least one seat reserved for North
>American appointees be allocated to a Tribal director.
>
>Cheers,
>Eric
>
>
>
>
>