Geo Regions Work Group ICANN Meeting Sydney, Australia Monday, 22 June 2009 >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our get-together on the Regions Working Group. I thought I'd start off just by giving us some talking points for the rest of the meeting by running through these slides that I put together last night, in fact, and sent 'round to you. They're not meant to be anything special, just really running through where we are, talking about my views of the various components. I'm not saying they're the right views, but they're my views. And I welcome interruption in the discussion as we go along. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Dave, would you like to just do -- >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Yeah. Can we run 'round the table in case people don't know who is whom. Pablo, can you -- >>PABLO HINOJOSA: I'm Pablo from ICANN. >>PAUL WILSON: Hi, I'm Paul Wilson, the head of APNIC, the Asia- Pacific regional Internet registry. >>RON SHERWOOD: Good morning. I'm Ron Sherwood, ccTLD dot VI and ccNSO liaison to ALAC. >>FAHD BATAYNEH: Good morning, everybody. My name is Fahd, and I'm from dot JO. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Good morning, everyone, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, chair of the ALAC. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Morning. I'm Dave Archbold from dot KY domain. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Good morning. Rob Hoggarth, ICANN staff. >>BART BOSWINKEL: Bart Boswinkel, ICANN staff. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Good morning. Olga Cavalli, from GNSO Council. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Good. Thanks, everybody. All right. Let's move on to the first slide that I did, which I was trying to review our present status. We've been through and defined the functional uses of regions. Question, are we sure that this is complete? That's an open question at the moment. Let me move on. We've then defined the categories of those uses. And we currently have three, though there was a suggestion of a fourth. And I'll come on to that in a minute. The three that we, I think, agreed on are: Representation, participation, and then we had a category called operations. And if -- those of you who have looked at my skeleton report, I suggested that we have sort of a separate table which, in fact, covered most of those operational things. And we're saying that they are most likely out of scope of this group. But out of scope doesn't mean ignore, because there may be lessons that we can learn from -- excuse me. This time in the morning doesn't suit me. So we've got operations that are probably out of scope. We then had the suggestion of a fourth category, which I think was called "definitions." But this was largely covering the next item on the list there, which was issues. And as I've suggested we separate out the uses and the issues table, I think that may well fall away. We then come on to the issues. We've identified some issues. But my personal view is we've got considerable more work to do on identifying more of those. And recently, we circulated the -- an early skeleton report just to give an idea of where we were going. Now, before I move on to the next one, any comments or questions on the items on this slide? >>PAUL WILSON: Sorry. The functional uses that you mention, was that circulated on the mailing list? >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Yeah, it has been circulated. It's also on the Wiki. >>PAUL WILSON: Okay. >>BART BOSWINKEL: That was before you joined. >>PAUL WILSON: Okay. All right. I'm not sure I got the Wiki address, either. >>BART BOSWINKEL: Okay. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Okay. Can you fix that? I can send it 'round to you anyway. I'll e-mail it to you shortly. Any other questions or comments? Do we sort of agree that's our present status? Do I get sort of nods around the table? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Nod, nod. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: There's lots of nods. In that case, I'll move on to the next one. So what is the initial report. And this was my idea of what we're supposed to be doing, providing the foundation for all our subsequent work so we know where we are. And then, by putting that out for public consultation, allows the community to verify that we have covered all the bases in our thoughts. It gives them the chance to come back and say, "Hey, you forgot about this use," or, "You forgot about that issue," so we're all agreed where we're starting from. That seems to be a good idea, from my point of view. Any comments, questions? Okay. I said "definitions" here. I suppose I didn't really mean definitions in the standard sense. I was trying to give an explanation of my view of each of these words that we've been using. Uses. It's basically a list of every way that regions are used within ICANN. And we'll have to identify any problems with and provide solutions for each of those uses as we move forward. The categories that we've established is just an easy way to group various uses together. The problems and solutions for all uses within a category are likely to be similar, but different from those in other categories. However, we may have to identify subcategories later. And I give an example here. In most uses in the representation category, they look at the makeup of boards and councils by examining the nationality of individual members. I mean, the board of ICANN is a good example of that. However, within the ccNSO, regions are actually used to define the electoral constituencies for the council. And that is something quite different. Because you can't use nationality, which is an attribute of an individual, to do that. So there is -- there are some subtle differences there that we will have to look at. Moving on to issues, trying to get a succinct definition is difficult. So I've talked 'round it. All the matters we should be taking into consideration when identifying problems and solutions. They may be expressed by others as goals we should aim to achieve, like those listed by the GNSO. They might be problems that have been highlighted by other people in previous public consultations or whatever. Or they may even be matters of concern that we ourselves identify. And the aim here is, really, we want to avoid the community saying later, "Why didn't you take XXX into account?" If we can get it all on the table at the start, it will be much easier to get buy-in and understanding later on. So that's where I see issues coming from. And just to give some examples, some of these were in the list that I put out before, but just to -- to highlight my thinking, you know, do present regions result in geographic diversity? I've got to question that in some cases, taking Cayman as an example. In the European region, that doesn't make sense from a geographic diversity point of view. So what's it doing? And we're supposed to be -- not "we" -- ICANN is supposed to be looking at cultural and functional diversity, not just geographic diversity. Now, does the regional structure take into account cultural and functional diversity as well as geographic diversity? Should it? Way back in the beginning, ICANN gave an undertaking, in fact, to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it would regularly review regions to take into account the evolution of the Internet. And that was actually something that came in a letter after the white paper. And it was a commitment made by ICANN. Now, it's an interesting comment, because what does it mean? It sort of suggests to me that regions should in some way reflect the makeup of the Internet. And if so, how? And does the present regional structure do that? I, frankly, don't see that it does. Should it in the future? And based on what? You know. Size of countries? Number of users? Number of servers? I'm not suggesting any answers. I don't want answers at this stage. I'm just trying to raise the questions. And I think that's where I pause and throw it open. Comments from 'round the table? >>PAUL WILSON: Yeah. I've got one about your definition of problems, which seems to assume that every problem has to be solved. You define a problem as something which we are here to solve. And I'm actually not sure if that's the case. There may be problems and you might want to redefine those issues, but there may be things which are seen as problems which we decide not to solve and maybe problems which are insoluble. For example, I'm coming from the point of view of the RIRs, which have got a different regional definition from the ICANN regional definitions. And some people may see that as a problem. But I'd be arguing here it's going to be a difficult problem to solve. And I don't think it should be the mission of this group to solve every problem that's thrown at it. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: I quite agree. And these were just sort of a few comments of the whole -- >>PAUL WILSON: I'm being a bit pedantic. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: We'd already said, and you may not have seen, that we believe both RIRs and, in fact, allocation of ICANN staff are outside the scope of this, because they are not based on the ICANN geographic regions, in inverted commas. But I think it's worth looking at and just seeing if we can learn in any way from them. >>PAUL WILSON: Yeah. I did also see a comment in one of the submissions that said that the RIR regions should be aligned with -- with the ICANN regions. I'm perfectly happy to talk about that. But I'd just like to say from the outset that it's. (Multiple people speaking simultaneously.) >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: I thought the comment was the other way around. Was it not that the ICANN regions should be realigned -- >>PAUL WILSON: Oh, well, in that case. [ Laughter ] >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Happy now, are you? >>BART BOSWINKEL: That was one of the reasons to introduce something like operations. It's very clear that your regions, the definitions from your regions, is very operational as well. And, for instance, for ICANN staff, it's operational as well. And if you go back one or two slides, then you see that most of the operations are out of scope of this working group. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: (Off mike). >>PAUL WILSON: Thank you. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: But aside -- Paul, aside from just your particular interest there, I agree with your overall comment, that what I think we should be doing is trying to put down on paper the concerns and the issues. They've then got to be prioritized. Many of them will conflict. So you can't solve them all. And I'm not suggesting that we do. And we've got -- we'll have to make that clear in the report. But at least we should look at them and decide whether they're right, relevant, whether anything can be done about them or not. Rob, if I can sort of turn to you. You were concerned at one point about, I think, the different definitions that we were using and the tables. Are you more comfortable? >>ROB HOGGARTH: Yes. I like to look at myself as sort of a litmus test of the every man, so that when it comes time for the larger community to look at some of these things, to have it set up in a structure that people can understand, and if not intuitively, very quickly sort of come to some understanding of it. And, yeah, in some of the e-mails, I sort of challenge that saying, "I'm not quite sure where we are. And are we organizing it?" I'm in much better shape at this point in terms of understanding it with your latest draft. I'd be interested in comments from members of the working group as to whether they seem to think that it's in the right direction. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Thanks, Rob. Can I actually go to Bart, because it's slightly different from the way you were thinking, I think, at the outset. >>BART BOSWINKEL: No. Yes, but as I say, that was just some thinking to move forward. And this is far more solidified and logical. It was just -- when we started talking about it in this working group, it was just a way of trying to structure the problems and the issues and how we define it and in what way we structure it. But it was moving forward. And I think in this way, we have -- because we went through the -- yeah, the exercise. Now we have a solid ground to move into the next phase of this working group. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Olga, any comments? >>OLGA CAVALLI: Yes, a comment. I was thinking about how our outcome would impact the other process that GNSO is facing right now of restructuring. That I cannot tell you, because we are in the middle of the process, and as you know, the council will be organized in two houses. And as far as I know today -- and we already checked with the bylaws -- GNSO has -- each constituency, and also in the NomCom appointees, which we are three, reference to the regions. I mean, ICANN from Latin America, and they are people coming from Africa or Asia. And this is also reflected in the representation in the constituencies. But I'm not sure, because each stake -- each house will have different stakeholders and many constituencies. So we should take this into consideration for the whole restructuring process. So my fear is, coming from a region that it's difficult that it's represented because it's far away and because all these processes are not so much known in businesses and universities, in the government, perhaps in the new structure, this is not so much considered, and maybe it's less represented. But it's just a comment. I think we have to take this into consideration and see how the outcome of the restructuring of the GNSO comes and our outcome also from our group. But that's what I was thinking. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Yeah. Is there a way we can get that -- just that concern down on paper? >>OLGA CAVALLI: We could, yes. And I should be the one to link in between the two, me and Zahid, but he's in another meeting right now. But, yes, we should -- >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: It can come in either under the "Issues" headings here, or even, you know, when we were talking about "Uses." It could be a future use. You know, everything that we've got in at the moment we gave cut into our future, too. And I don't think we have any got future uses. Perhaps it could fit in there. >>OLGA CAVALLI: It could fit in future uses. What is hard for me to say is how the final structure of the GNSO will be. Maybe, Rob, you can help me a little bit. No? >>ROB HOGGARTH: I think part of the challenge is, it's the -- through the restructuring effort, giving life to the geographic regions structure. And the true challenge is, as they go through that process, they're finding challenges with smaller stakeholder groups or maybe smaller groups and trying to find the right process for appropriately allocating those representational seats. And so that may be a broader issue for this group to look at. In terms of timing, one would hope the GNSO restructuring effort would be concluded prior to February 2010, when it group produces its final report. And so there might be some -- some items that are handled prior to the conclusion of this working group's efforts, or maybe some things will just work themselves out. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Maybe something that we -- could be one of our outcomes is a recommendation that any new structure within ICANN, including GNSO, takes into consideration geographic diversity, no matter which are the new or existing geo regions that we decide to have. This could be something that we include in our outcome. And I would talk about this within the GNSO also. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Dave. Sorry. I tend to light up. I'm hoping you might recognize me. But I'll jump in anyway. Shall I? You're used to that by now. Paragraph just to pick up on what you're saying, Olga, because I think this is hugely important from the At- Large Advisory Committee, but more importantly, our member ALSs' point of view. At the moment I was just Skypeing back to them, because they're all out there at different meetings and breakfasts that they're talking about now. And they were quite interested to say, other than how we organize ourselves into geographic regions, well, think about GNSO restructuring, think about this, that, and the other. I think getting this out to the next edges of discussion is going to generate an awful lot of useful feedback. And I'm very excited about where we are right now, sort of poised to take it to the next step. But what many of our regions, our RALOs, have had to do in the last, well, since we were formally formed into the ALAC version 2.0 that we are yet now, yet to be 3, hopefully, by Seoul, is, we've insisted within the sort of bylaws of those regions that they do go for gender diversity, cultural diversity, state of emerging technology, because we've got least and most-developed countries in the same regions. So rather than carve up the regions, because it was the joy we were given -- here you are, five slices. Make it globally representative -- we've actually met the needs or fitted our subrules to meet the needs to make sure you've got what I think the intent of what is in the requirement to review regions. I read that more how regions are actually being reviewed. If we had a British citizen, an American citizen, a Canadian citizen, someone from the New Zealand and me sitting on a table, that is not properly represented, you know. And I think that's the subtext that I was reading into the intent. But it isn't what's happening, you know, sticking in -- not criticizing Adrian in any way, because, after all, he is a fellow Aussie, but he is another Aussie, for heaven's sake. We have a bit more in Asia Pacific, present company, of course -- But you do know what I mean. You know what I mean. We really have to get out there and make the uses fit the purpose of why regions were divided, to ensure we don't have the least developeds and most developeds not equitably treated. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Cheryl, you are totally right. My concern is a little bit one up. I mean, let's have someone from Latin America, let's have someone -- And then if we can go further and we can -- Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela are all different countries, and I totally agree with you. But you, in your structure, I think you have more realistic representation of regions, because you have the RALOs and the appoint point in time. Maybe I am mistaken in what I am saying. But what happens in the GNSO and what will happen is the representation is through constituencies, contracted parties, noncontracted parties, and they have to go and find their representatives, which is challenging for some constituencies, because they don't have -- like registries. Until dot Asia existed, they had very few people in other countries than United States and Europe to appoint to the GNSO Council. So I totally agree with you. My concern is it's more basic. It's below. It's behind -- >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: (Off mic.) >>OLGA CAVALLI: But I will take this concern to the GNSO, and just to let you know my concern here. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Well, I think both of you, these are issues that we should attempt to get down on paper. So could I ask you both to look at it from your own perspectives and please let us have something that we can put in. Who haven't we heard from? You have nothing to say. >>ROB SHERWOOD: No, I don't know I have anything to contribute here. We worked together on the very early stages on this, and you are aware of my opinions and the complications that I have experienced based on the Caribbean location and so on. But I'm here as an observer, and I'm very happy to be here. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: You don't have to be quiet just because you are an observer. Have we got anybody on the conference phone? >>ROB HOGGARTH: Carlton, are you on the conference line? >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Okay. Let me move on to the last slide. I very intentionally have not put dates on here, but I thought we could talk about them. Please, can everybody look at our table of uses. Have we captured everything? And here is maybe where we've got the future uses, and on the GNSO, could slip in, that might be missing. The same might be for ALAC. Everybody please try to think and document the issues. >>CHERYL LANGDON ORR: (Off mic.) >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Really, we do need -- if we're trying to capture and anticipate every comment that's going to come out of the community, which is really what we're aiming to do -- >>CHERYL LANGDON ORR: We're never going to get that right, though. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: No, but we can do the best we can, and we ain't there yet. We ain't there yet. So that's a task for everybody. We've got to work on the next version of the draft report, and I think that's easiest to do with a little bit of a core team. And I'm looking here at the three on my left here. So Rob, Bart, and Olga, if we can work on that and circulate. And when we think it's good enough for a wider distribution, we will send it round to you. That way, you can be concentrating on documenting all those issues whilst we're doing the report. Then we'll circulate the draft report for working group comment and feedback, and I would suggest we end that process with a teleconference. Now, how does that fit in -- I must admit, I did not bring your schedule easily to hand with me. How does that fit in, Rob? >>ROB HOGGARTH: You were looking at originally -- and just for background for some of the new members of the group or observers, when the original draft charter was prepared, the expectation was that it would be approved some time ago and that by Sydney you would have had your initial report completed. In revising and having several delays in that process, we certainly hope the board will finally approve the charter at their meeting on Friday. I adjusted some of the dates to reflect a -- some flexibility in terms of producing an initial report, but didn't change the broader time frame. You still have a goal of February 2010 for the final report. You are looking at Seoul for the intermediate or middle report. So you are looking at trying to produce your initial report certainly by the end of July so that you have the month of August for people to comment, give you feedback, then give you time over the next six weeks or so to draft the intermediate report. You may, you know, as things progress decide that that has to slide, but right now that's what the expectations are. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: And that really means, ladies and gentlemen, you don't have time to get back home and say, "Ahhh, that was ICANN over. I'm entitled to a holiday" now and don't do anything. What it means is in the evening, whilst you are here, instead of going out and eating -- [ Laughter ] >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: -- you are going to go back to your room and work on these things and you are going to keep going when you get back home. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: We have excellent medical services here in this country and I will line you up with someone who can help you with those solutions. [ Laughter ] >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: I've got to try. But the serious point is, we don't have long. I agree with your time schedule. I am very keen to meet our end target. >>BART BOSWINKEL: More importantly is the Seoul date because the experience I have is that, say, the intermediate report, that will set the direction. After Seoul, then it's conclusion, and that's relatively easy. The Seoul one is going to be the hard one. >>PAUL WILSON: Can we add some deadlines, some dates for this further work, then? >>ROB HOGGARTH: I'm not used to the community looking at staff to set deadlines. >>PAUL WILSON: I was looking at the Chair. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: I think we can work backwards, which is usually the best way. I'm looking at you simply because I don't have my calendar here or anything. >>BART BOSWINKEL: May I suggest that -- may I suggest that, say, given your request that, today, you send out a schedule with deadlines -- >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Yeah. >>BART BOSWINKEL: -- that's just as easy to do it on the fly as -- yeah. But by the end of today, that you send around an updated version with some table with deadlines. >>PAUL WILSON: No lunch for you today. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: I think that's fine. >>ROB HOGGARTH: To review where the drafting is at present, you produced the skeleton outline, I have given you feedback and comments on that. We've already also provided the draft tables. We could probably pull that together in the next 24, 48 hours just to confirm this looks good, it's certainly worthy of further working group input under the theory that more brains might produce something faster. And then you could look at, perhaps, having -- looking at the calendar for June, something late next week in terms of a deadline for working group feedback on that document, then producing a subsequent draft so that you could be very close to a final draft form, probably the end of the first week of July, with the understanding, I think as Cheryl observed, that you're not going to have 100 percent of the issues identified, but you've got it out there, and then you've got time for the community to respond. And that gives you, as a working group, an opportunity to assess that feedback. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: And, please, in all the languages at the one time. Not have the English out for comment and then some weeks later getting around to the five U.N. languages. Really, I just couldn't convince the ALAC Review Working Group to hold up their English until the rest was ready. They just wouldn't do it for me. But that's how hard line I would like to be on that. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Well, and I think that's an excellent point for this working group's efforts. Some discipline in this group is we have a final deadline on X date, but it's held and then everything is released once the translations are done. The good thing, I guess, about the ICANN meeting ending is that there will be capabilities to quickly turn things around without the tsunami of documents that come prior to a meeting. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Do you prep for meetings? [ Laughter ] >>ROB HOGGARTH: Some people debate that, I think. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Any other business, ladies and gentlemen? If not, I'll let you go and eat. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I'm now doing the homework you gave me. By this time of day, I am up for second breakfast. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: I must admit, I was going down very early this morning to get my breakfast and other people from ICANN were going down to do some exercise in the gym. I felt bad. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: No, no, they just do that to make you feel bad. In fact, I think what they actually do is pop out, have a quick spray of water, go huh, huh, huh, and go back in the lobby saying we're working hard, keeping trim, making you all look slovenly. >>DAVE ARCHBOLD: Okay. Thanks, one and all. I look forward to your further input, and we'll set up a teleconference in due course. Have a good ICANN meeting.