From: Thomas Schneider
Time: 17 March 2015
To: Mathieu Weill; Thomas Rickert; León Sanchez
CC: Adam Peake; GAC
Dear Co-Chairs of the CCWG Accountability, dear Thomas, Leon and Mathieu
Thank you for your request for input from the GAC on the prospect of a contingency induced by a potential change in the GAC's decision making procedures. And thank you all for the good exchange we had on the phone last week.
Given the short time available, it has not been possible to undertake broad consultations with the whole GAC about this issue. In this situation, I can only give you some feedback based on my own experience as well as exchanges I had with some GAC members in the past days. I hope you will get more feedback from GAC members and observers before, during and after the f2f meeting of the CCWG in Istanbul next week.
First of all, I - like many of my colleagues - do not really see a contingency related to the GAC as a body with regard to the CCWG's Work Stream 1 (accountability related to the IANA functions). As we do not recall the GAC having had an role in the IANA stewardship function so far and as one of the conditions put forward by the NTIA is that no other single country or intergovernmental body should take over the IANA stewardship role, it is difficult to see why the GAC's operating principles should have an effect on the IANA stewardship function at all.
With regard to the overall accountability of ICANN (WS2), the GAC may indeed have a role in contributing to enhancing ICANN's accountability and to the organisations' checks and balances in the future.
However, it should be noted that - unlike the GNSO or the ccNSO - the GAC does not develop or decide about policies, but is - in its role as advisory body of the ICANN board - giving advice to the board on public policy matters. The board can either ask the GAC for advice on an issue or the GAC can advise the board on its own initiative. In both cases, according to the current bylaws, the board is only asked to take GAC advice "duly into account", but is not obliged to follow GAC advice. In case the board decides not to follow GAC advice, the board shall inform the GAC about its reasons for not doing so and will try to find a mutually acceptable solution. If no such solution is found, the board is still free to take its decision without the GAC as a committee having any means to force the board to follow its advice. It is then up to individual GAC members to act according to their "rights and obligations ... with regard to public policy issues falling within their responsibilities".
According to its operating principles, the GAC works on "the basis of seeking consensus among its membership". Where consensus is not possible, the chair shall "convey the full range of views expressed by members" to the ICANN board. So, under the current operating principles, the GAC may address advice to the board which is either informing the board about a GAC consensus or about the existence of diverse views among its membership on an issue. Again, the board should then take this advice "duly into account". In the past, there have been several examples where there has been a diversity of views among GAC members on an issue which have been communicated to the board.
In the current operating principles, it is not specified how - in the case of diverse views in the GAC on an issue - this diversity should be communicated to the board. In the attempt to enhance accountability of ICANN's processes as well as the accountability of governments to their citizens and the global community, but also to improve ICANN's checks and balances and to avoid any risk of capture by an individual or a small group of governments, it may be useful to enhance transparency about the range and spread of diversity of views among GAC members, so that - before taking a decision - the board is best informed about this diversity and also the whole community is able to see on what basis GAC advice is formulated and that it is able to assess to what extent such advice has been "duly taken into account".
I am happy to discuss with you how the GAC can help to contribute to enhancing ICANN's accountability and I am sure that other GAC members (and observers) will contribute to this deliberations as well.
I am looking forward to a fruitful and constructive discussion in Istanbul
Best regards
Thomas
Thomas Schneider
chair of the GAC
