[ga-nominations] acceptance of nomination

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

1a.  Jonathan Weinberg

1b. <weinberg@msen.com>

1c. I'm a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, 
Michigan.  I've also been a visiting scholar at Cardozo Law School's 
Squadron Program in Law, Media and Society; a legal scholar in residence at 
the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's Office of Plans and Policy; a 
professor in residence at the U.S. Justice Department;  a visiting scholar 
at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Journalism and Communication 
Studies; a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; and a 
law clerk to then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

  I spent a year on loan to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in 
1997-98, and for about six months prior to the issuance of the Green Paper 
I was closely involved in the U.S. government's process of trying to figure 
out what to do about DNS issues.  Since then, I've spent a whole lot of 
time on domain name issues.  I was the elected co-chair of Working Group C, 
which was chartered to generate recommendations on the addition of new 
gTLDs.  The Noncommercial Constituency's evaluation of my job as co-chair 
can be found at <http://www.glocom.ac.jp/users/ajp/ncc-wgc.html>.  My web 
page is at <http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg>; it includes links to an 
article I've written about ICANN and comments I've filed with ICANN.  I'm 
an editor of ICANNWatch <www.icannwatch.org>.

1d. When I initially was nominated for this job, a couple of weeks ago, I 
declined; I've changed my mind after a bunch of conversations with people 
off-list who asked me to do so.

  The most important job of the GA chair right now, it seems to me, is to 
facilitate the GA's functioning as a body that can generate credible policy 
recommendations that are entitled to weight in the ICANN policy-development 
process.  Our current consideration of the proposed Verisign agreement 
provides a good example.  It's one thing to bicker on a mailing list about 
the merits of the agreement, and quite another for our discussion process 
to generate a reasoned policy statement that can be brought forward as 
representing the rough consensus of this body.  I'm pleased that (as I 
write this statement, on Thursday, March 22) we seem to be on track to 
produce such a document.

  Full disclosure: My ability to attend physical ICANN meetings is going to 
be contingent on my ability to get funding and on my family obligations.  I 
can't commit to being there for all of them.