Fwd: [] Public Comment: Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

A note on this: I will be a writing a comment on recommendation 42 in the next few weeks.

The problem with this Recommendations is that there is an attempt by those in the Contracted Parties House (CPH) to declare that the Board may not approve any thing as Consensus Policy, especially those that affect their contracts, unless it is first approved by a GNSO Council supermajority.  This is contrary to my understanding of the current by-Laws the current by-laws position, a position many in the CPH dispute through a deft use of sophistry, that the Board is free to approve a Consensus Policy that had garnered a majority in the GNSO.

I personally believe this is a very serious issue as it would allow either of the contracted parties to block any policy they did not approve of.  Due to the bicameral nature of the council, even getting a majority for a policy one of the either Registries or Registrars did not want would be tough.  But requiring a supermajority would be impossible.

This also has a ancillary issue that keeps popping up and that is the Contracted Party's insistence that they can negotiate their contracts with ICANN, i.e., the General Counsel, without allowing the rest  of the ICANN Community, including especailly the GNSO and its council, seats  at the table.

Once I have written my comments I will circulate them looking for NCUC, NPOC, CC and ultimately NCSG support.  I also plan to ask the CSG and its constituencies to support my statement as I believe this is a Non Contracted Parties House issue.  We may care about different policy issues, but we both tend to want to have a seat at the table.

I should not e that I was on the working Team that produced this document, but I realized what was happening with Recommendation 42 and realized that it was being skewed in the CPH's favor too late in the process. 

I recommend that anyone who has the time and inclination review this new PDP process recommendation.  There is a lot in there and it could have a strong influence on future policy making in the GNSO.  I expect that there are other comments that are worth making.

a.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Glen de Saint Géry <Glen at icann.org>
> Date: 21 February 2011 22:48:00 GMT+01:00
> To: liaison6c <liaison6c at gnso.icann.org>
> Subject: [liaison6c] Public Comment: Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-3-21feb11-en.htm
> Public Comment: Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process
> 
> PDP-WT presents its Proposed Final Report
> 
> 21 February 2011
> 
> As part of GNSO Improvements, the Policy Development Process (PDP) Work Team (WT) was tasked to develop recommendations for a new GNSO policy development process. ICANN's policies have wide-ranging impact on how domain names are handled in the gTLD environment, so the method of developing the policies matters. Following review of the comments received on its Initial Report and continued deliberations on remaining issues, the PDP-WT now publishes its Proposed Final Report which contains amongst others forty-eight (48) recommendations, an outline of the proposed new Annex A as well as a supporting document that is envisioned to be included in the GNSO Council Operating Procedures as the PDP Manual. Before finalizing its report and submitting it to the GNSO Council for its consideration, the Working Group is asking for your input. The public comment forum will be open until 1 April 2011.
> 
> For those interested, the PDP-WT will present its report and the proposed new GNSO Policy Development Process at the ICANN meeting in San Francisco (see http://svsf40.icann.org/sched-overview for further details).
> Key Recommendations
> 
>   * Some of the key recommendations of the new PDP include:
>         o Recommending the use of a standardized "Request for an Issue Report Template" (recommendation 4)
>         o The introduction of a "Preliminary Issues Report" which shall be published for public comment prior to the creation of a Final Issues Report to be acted upon by the GNSO Council (recommendations 10 & 11).
>         o A Requirement that each PDP Working Group operate under a Charter (recommendation 19)
>         o Dialogue between the GNSO Council and an Advisory Committee in the event that an the GNSO Council decides not to initiate a PDP following an Issues Report requested by such Advisory Committee (recommendation 18)
>         o Changing the existing Bylaws requiring a mandatory public comment period upon initiation of a PDP to optional at the discretion of the PDP Working Group (recommendation 22)
>         o Clarification of 'in scope of ICANN policy process or the GNSO' (recommendation 23)
>         o Changing the timeframes of public comment periods including (i) a required public comment period of no less than 30 days on a PDP Working Group's Initial Report and (ii) a minimum of 21 days for any non-required public comment periods the PDP WG might choose to initiate at its discretion (recommendation 28)
>         o Maintaining the existing requirement of PDP Working Groups producing both an Initial Report and Final Report, but giving PDP Working Groups the discretion to produce additional outputs (recommendation 34)
>         o A recommendation allowing for the termination of a PDP prior to delivery of the Final Report (recommendation 37)
>         o Guidance to the GNSO Council on the treatment of PDP WG recommendations (recommendation 39)
>         o New procedures on the delivery of recommendations to the Board including a requirement that all reports presented to the Board are reviewed by either the PDP Working Group or the GNSO Council and made publicly available (recommendation 40)
>         o The use of Implementation Review Teams (recommendation 43)
>         o A redefinition of 'GNSO Supermajority vote' to include the original meaning of GNSO Supermajority i.e. 2/3 of Council members of each house so a GNSO Supermajority vote would be 75% of one House and a majority of the other house or 2/3 of Council members of each house (recommendation 48)
> 
> For a complete overview of all the recommendations, please see Section 2 of the Proposed Final Report.
> Background
> 
> On 26 June 2008 the ICANN Board approved a set of recommendations designed to improve the effectiveness of the GNSO, including its policy activities, structure, operations, and communications. The following pertains to the PDP-WT's mission:
> 
> Revising the PDP: The Policy Development Process (PDP) needs to be revised to make it more effective and responsive to ICANN's needs. It should be brought in-line with the time and effort actually required to develop policy and made consistent with ICANN's existing contracts (including, but not limited to, clarifying the appropriate scope of GNSO "consensus policy" development). While the procedure for developing "consensus policies" will need to continue to be established by the Bylaws as long as required by ICANN's contracts, the GNSO Council and Staff should propose new PDP rules for the Board's consideration and approval that contain more flexibility. The new rules should emphasize the importance of the preparation that must be done before launch of a working group or other activity, such as public discussion, fact-finding, and expert research in order to properly define the scope, objective, and schedule for a specific policy development goal and the development of metr!
> ics for measuring success.
> 
> The charter of the PDP-WT is to develop and document a revised GNSO Policy Development Process that achieves the goals established by the ICANN Board. The PDP-WT, with staff assistance, will need to determine what changes to the bylaws will be required. New processes will need to be documented properly to ensure that the bylaws (and any related operational rules or procedures) are updated accurately. The revised PDP, after review and approval by the PPSC, GNSO Council, and ICANN Board, would replace the current PDP defined in Annex A of the ICANN bylaws.
> Further Information
> 
> PDP-WT Proposed Final Report - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-wt-proposed-final-report-21feb11-en.pdf [PDF, 1.21 MB]
> PDP-WT Proposed Final Report - Executive Summary Only - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-wt-executive-summary-proposed-final-report-21feb11-en.pdf [PDF, 580 KB]
> PDP-WT Proposed Final Report - without annexes - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-wt-proposed-final-report-no-annexes-21feb11-en.pdf [PDF, 998 KB]
> PDP-WT Initial Report - http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-initial-report-31may10-en.pdf [PDF, 2.36 MB]
> PDP-WT Workspace - https://st.icann.org/icann-ppsc/index.cgi?pdp_team
> GNSO Improvements - http://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/
> Deadline and how to submit comments
> 
> Comments are welcome via e-mail to gnso-pdp-final-report at icann.org until 1 April 2011.
> Access to the public comment forum from which comments can be posted can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-201104-en.htm#gnso-pdp-final-report
> An archive of all comments received will be publicly posted at http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-pdp-final-report/.
> 
> Staff responsible: Marika Konings
> 
> 
> Glen de Saint Géry
> GNSO Secretariat
> gnso.secretariat at gnso.icann.org
> http://gnso.icann.org
> 
> 
> 
>