[Internal-cg] bylaws feedback

Alissa Cooper alissa at cooperw.in
Mon Apr 11 17:48:32 UTC 2016


I have looked a bit at the draft bylaws and I’d like to ask Kavouss and Milton to bring the following issue back to the bylaws drafting group:

Section 1.1(d)(ii) incorporates by reference a number of documents external to the bylaws as a means to prevent challenges on the basis that those documents conflict with or violate the bylaws. In particular, bullet (D) applies this provision to "the IANA Naming Function Contract between ICANN and PTI effective [October 1, 2016]." 

Given the ICG's historical encouragement of the community to meet timelines necessary for a successful transition, I find this provision to be extremely problematic. It incorporates a reference to a document that does not exist yet and that is unlikely to be completed by the time the bylaws are supposed to be done (early June). In fact, it is not even clear at this point whether the new ICANN affiliate to be setup will be name "PTI" or have some other name. I don't understand how anyone can reason about whether 1.1(d)(ii) is an acceptable bylaws provision if it references a document that has not been written. (This also applies to (B) and (C) since it could apply to future documents that haven’t been written yet.)

Furthermore, I question whether it is a sound decision to essentially allow for documents external to the bylaws to be able to modify the bylaws (under (F)). This section would make more sense if it was entirely internally specified, without the references to external documents. At a minimum, I think we should recommend that (D) be removed.

Thanks,
Alissa


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