EMM 6

ALAC Rules of Procedure should be updated with addition of a new procedure regarding the appointment by the NomCom of 5 ALAC members who will also act as Liaisons.

The importance of the Liaison positions and the importance of selecting a qualified person who meets the target group's criteria (if any); the difficulty of having the NomCom find such qualified people; the potential for harm rather than good; and the issue of asking new ALAC members to do double duty in light of experience with many previous NomCom appointees all indicate that this is a non-starter.

The first draft simply said that NomCom appointees will take on Liaison roles. The comments submitted made it clear that this could not work. Liaisons are critical to the relationship between the ALAC and other AC/SOs, and their special skills, knowledge and background are essential. In several cases, the other organization has to agree to accept the particular person as Liaison. 

The only change made in the report following our comments was that the ALAC should supply the NomCom with a list of criteria they should use in their selection. This presumed that such “criteria” could be quantified and that there would be abundant applicants with suitable knowledge (including knowledge of the ALAC and other AC/SO) and skills. We note that the requirement for such prior knowledge of ICANN and its constituent bodies is potentially at odds with the NomCom responsibility of getting “new blood” into ICANN. It also ignored the issue that the other AC/SO may have criteria that they use to judge acceptability. 

Based on concrete past examples, it is clear that a poor Liaison is not only ineffective but can be dangerous to the relationship between the ALAC and the other ICANN body. 

The current ALAC Chair has gone on record saying that if implementing this recommendation was mandated, he would recommend abolishing all Liaison positions to other AC/SOs rather than risking the damage that poor Liaison selections could cause.