• Accept As-Is
• Accept With modification
• Reject

Rationale:

MK: Accept with modification. This is aligned with current requirements, although a definition would need to be provided as what is considered representative of the geographic, cultural and gender diversity of the Internet as a whole. Also, the recommendations does not take into account that some participate in a PDP WG as representatives of a group in which such diversity may be present - should that also be factored in when making this assessment?

40

Paul Diaz

gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group

(Not Sure) Because circumstances vary so much from WG to WG, the qualification of ‘reasonably practicable’ is important to include. How would ‘reasonably practical’ be defined? How would it be measured? What if a judgment is made that ‘reasonably practical’ measures were not taken to obtain diverse WG membership? Should the efforts of volunteers over many months be rejected if it was not possible to get participants that meet diversity goals?

77

Osvaldo Novoa

ISPCP

(It Depends) Excellent intent but the ISPCP cannot support this Recommendation. The number of volunteers for most working groups is not always high and it remains a key requirement to have the relevant level of expertise, wherever that may reside. As an example, if that requirement resulted in a high level of participants from one geographical area, it is more than justified. A situation where participation from any one geographical group has to be reduced in order achieve balance with others requires careful consideration, particularly if the level of expertise was diluted through that action. The interpretation of ‘reasonably practicable’ is also critical here. This recommendation is well meant but with the current level of engagement, in practice would achieve little and implemented rigorously could certainly be damaging. Possibly this maybe one for the future, hopefully when many of the other recommendations have already resulted in increased levels of participation across the globe and the ICANN community is more diverse and balanced.

158

Anupam Agrawal

Internet Society, India Kolkata Chapter

The Indian representation in the GNSO council or for that matter the Asia Pacific User vis a vis the representation in GNSO is not reflective enough and efforts needs to be made to improve the scenario. The same analysis based on different groups within GNSO will reflect the real picture and can be included as part of analysis. The Westlake observation in terms of diversity of participation, is absolutely correct and there is agreement in this regard.

170

Laura Covington, J. Scott Evans, Marie Pattullo

Business Constituency

While the goal of diversity is certainly laudable and aspirational, a mandatory requirement to ensure geographic diversity only increases the difficulty of finding volunteers willing to commit the time and effort required to serve on the GNSO Council or on any particular PDP WG. For this reason, the BC cannot support a mandatory diversity requirement. This language should focus on best efforts, not a priority for geographic diversity over all other considerations.

174

Laura Covington, J. Scott Evans, Marie Pattullo

Business Constituency

We have concerns about this recommendation.  We note that all WGs are made up of volunteers and we fundamentally disagree with any suggestion that the Board could choose not to approve GNSO Policy because insufficiently diverse volunteers came forward for a particular PDP WG. The Community should do its best to have experts from everywhere – the Board should accept that and not be able to override the GNSO’s choices of elected representatives.

226

Stephanie Perrin

NCUC/NCSG

This would be extremely difficult to achieve at the moment.  At best, you could rate the participation and attempt to add others to achieve balance, but we simply do not at the present time have enough volunteers on the working groups.

273

Greg Shatan

IPC

(It Depends) Striving towards the widest possible diversity of representation, in terms of geography, gender and culture, is something which PDP WGs should certainly aim for. It goes too far to make this a requirement. As with GNSO Councilors, however, this should never be at the expense of appointing the best-qualified candidate for the role. This recommendation also fails to recognize that many WGs are open to all, without any selection process. Therefore, there is no way to control for diversity in such groups. The IPC would not support any effort that had the intent or effect of discouraging participation by willing volunteers, simply because they were not sufficiently “diverse.” In many current working groups with limited representative members, it has been possible to join as an observer/participant even when not selected as the representative for a particular SG or C. In practice there has been little or no distinction between representatives and observer/participants, and so even if the best qualified candidate for a role is not the most “diverse” one they should be encouraged to still participate fully and even, where possible, to act as back up for the selected representative.

291

Amr Elsadr

I am not fond of subjective criteria such as “geographic, cultural and gender diversity of the Internet as a whole”.  I would not be opposed to the GNSO establishing criteria of diversity that should be aspirational in GNSO working groups.

347

Olivier Crepin-Leblond

ALAC

(Support) Whilst the ALAC fully supports this recommendation, it is unclear how practical it can be as in a Working Group, all participation is voluntary. We also have concerns that the process might end up a “ticking the box exercise.” Geographic, cultural and gender diversity should not only be reflected by the names on a mailing list. To achieve that, the GNSO need to assess the implementation of recommendation 29 and recommendation 35, and base on that assessment, undertake follow-on steps in the running of Working Groups.