On New Year's Eve, an ad hoc committee submitted a report to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Board of Directors recommending a number of reforms to satisfy concerns raised by U.S. regulators. The reforms outlined by the Accountability and Transparency Review Team include changes to ICANN's governance, decision making, transparency, and review processes. The report suggested specific changes for the ICANN Ombudsman.
The ARTR report indicated a concern about the relationship between the Ombuds and the Board and recommended it be brought in line with IOA standards.
24. As soon as possible, but no later than the March 2011 ICANN meeting, the operations of the Office of Ombudsman and the relationship between the Office of the Ombudsman and the Board of Directors should be assessed and, to the extent they are not, should be brought into compliance with the relevant aspects of internationally recognized standards for: a) an Ombudsman function; and b) a Board supporting such a function under the Standards of Practice of the International Ombudsman Association.
In part, this recommendation reflected concerns voiced by the public.
With regard to the Office of the Ombudsman, the ATRT received community feedback regarding the effectiveness of the Office of the Ombudsman, and conducted two interviews with the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is not perceived by the community to be a fully independent accountability mechanism for accountability of the ICANN Board. Questions have been raised about inconsistencies between the structure and operation of ICANN’s Office of the Ombudsman and internationally accepted standards for Ombudsman. The ATRT also asks the ICANN Board to explain the metrics used to determine the Ombudsman’s bonus and to consider this as well as broader compensation issues in context of the review of the Office of the Ombudsman under recommendation 24.
ICANN will make a decision on the report within six months and is accepting public comments through resulting recommendations will be submitted for public comment and the Board will take February 14, 2011. (ICANN Accountability and Transparency Review Team Final Recommendations.)
Dear Tom,
ReplyDeleteThis is my second comment to your blog post. I notice that my first comment has not been posted, and hope that this is simply a time lag issue, and not a purposeful attempt to prevent a correction of your blog.
Tom, your blog post heading “ICANN Review Team Says Ombuds Should Follow IOA Standards” is simply wrong, and implies an incorrect and misleading impression of what the ATRT actually said. Tom, I know you to be an articulate and intelligent person, so I can only assume that either you created this byline in a hurry, or in error. In any case, it needs to be corrected.
Let’s start off by being very clear, at no place in its report, or in my discussions with the organization has anyone suggested that the ICANN Office of the Ombudsman follow IOA Standards. In fact, as you have pointed out in your blog post “ICANN Ombuds Points Out -- Executive Ombuds Have No Professional Group” executive ombudsman programs, such as ICANN’s do not fit into the organizational ombudsman standards.
In fact, you created that blog post reporting on a post on the ICANN Ombudsman Blog “Ombudsman presentation at the ICANN Meeting Public Forum – Cartagena” (https://omblog.icann.org/?p=322). The point being, that it is abundantly clear in that report and in the ATRT recommendations that the ICANN Office of the Ombudsman is an executive ombudsman model, and that any standards review should be based broadly on standards established by the United States Ombudsman Association, the forum of Canadian Ombudsmen, the International Ombudsman Institute, the International Standards Association, and to the extent that they are relevant, the International Ombudsman Association.
Tom, let’s take a very close look at exactly what the ATRT report says:
As soon as possible, but no later than the March 2011 ICANN meeting, the operations of the Office of Ombudsman and the relationship between the Office of the Ombudsman and the Board of Directors should be assessed and, to the extent they are not, should be brought into compliance with the relevant aspects of internationally recognized standards for: a) an Ombudsman function; and b) a Board supporting such a function under the Standards of Practice of the International Ombudsman Association.
Nowhere in that recommendation does it say that the ICANN Office of the Ombudsman should or must follow IOA standards. In fact, the intent of this recommendation, and the subsequent paragraph which you have included in your post, shows a desire on the part of the ICANN to ensure that the organization and the Office of the Ombudsman meet internationally accepted standards in the ombudsman field concerning independence of the ombudsman, and the handling of communication and recommendations from the Ombudsman to the board.
Repeat: Nowhere in that recommendation does it say that the ICANN Office of the Ombudsman should or must follow IOA standards. There is an obvious grammatical error in the ATRT report which will be rough to their attention, in that the sentence begins with a collective (relevant aspects of internationally recognized standards) and ends with a singular (Standards of Practice of the International Ombudsman Association). The singular is redundant, and this error will be brought to the attention of the ATRT and ICANN staff.
Tom, I would also point out to you that this exercise of comparing international standards to the operations of my Office has already been completed in Chapters 4 and 5 of my doctoral dissertation, found at http://www.icann.org/ombudsman/blueprint-for-evaluation-of-an-ombudsman-nov08.pdf.
Finally Tom, based on the facts put forward in this correspondence, I am sure that you will immediately correct your blog byline. I am sure that you would be anxious to make such a correction, as you would want to assure your readers that there is no conflict of interest between your editing practices and your role as a member of the IOA Board of Directors.
Happy New Year.
Dr. Frank Fowlie
Thanks, Frank. I've revised the headline (from "ICANN Review Team Says Ombuds Should Follow IOA Standards" to "ICANN Review Team Says Ombuds Should Move to Applicable IOA Standards") to better reflect the content of the post and the ATRT report.
ReplyDeleteDear Tom,
ReplyDeleteThank you, however, the headline "ICANN Review Team Says Ombuds Should Move to Applicable IOA Standards" is still not an accurate description of the ATRT Report, and the headline still infers that the ICANN ffice of the Ombudsman still has some relationship with IOA Standards. As noted in my previous comment, it does not. May I suggest that you rethink the headline once again?