Sending on behalf of the CCWG-Accounability Co-Chairs

 

Going Forward

Although the CCWG has completed an important part of our work, we are far from done, and there are a number of projects we must still complete. These projects include:

·      Drafting of Bylaws to implement our Work Stream 1 (WS1) recommendations

·      Completing the work on IRP that goes beyond the Bylaws

·      Finalizing the budget process in coordination with the CWG-Stewardship

·      Undertaking Work Stream 2 (WS2)

Later this week, the co-Chairs will be sending a note to the Chartering Organizations (COs) to explain our plan for completing the CCWG’s remaining WS1 projects and that we assume that CO members will remain in place unless we are advised otherwise. This will be a follow-up to the communication sent on 6 March 2016 (available here).

You will also see a call for WS2 volunteers on the ICANN website in the next few days. In accordance with ICANN’s general outreach practices, the announcement will go out to all users subscribed to ICANN news alerts, and shared amongst their regional stakeholder engagement teams, mailing lists and social media platforms.

We ask that you also share this call for volunteers widely to ensure that all interested parties, including those outside of the ICANN ecosystem, are aware that they are welcome to participate in projects of WS2. It is important for our group to continue to strive for maximized diversity of our participants going forward.

Bylaws Drafting

The immediate focus of our efforts is drafting the necessary Bylaws based on our WS1 recommendations. As discussed during our meeting on 10 March at ICANN55 in Marrakech, there is a critical path for the Bylaws drafting. Along with the CWG-Stewardship co-Chairs, we have instructed our legal teams to work with ICANN to draft the Bylaws. The legal teams will meet in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week to work through and refine language for the draft Bylaws. Our CCWG Rapporteur, Becky Burr, will attend the meeting as an observer and will send through written updates to the CCWG mailing list. Chris Disspain will also attend as an observer from the ICANN Board, and Bernard Turcotte will observe in his support role to the CCWG-Accountability.

It is expected that the lawyers will come to an agreement by the end of this meeting and that a final draft of the proposed revisions to the Bylaws would be available for CCWG review by Friday 2 April 2016 at the latest.

It is important to remember that the overall transition schedule depends on completing this work. In order for the transition to take place by the end of the current contract between NTIA and ICANN on 30 September 2016:

·      ICANN must publish the Bylaws for a 30-day public comment period beginning on 20 April.

·      This timeline would allow the Board to approve the changes to the Bylaws on 27 May.

·      This means that the CCWG will be required to complete its review of the draft Bylaws by Wednesday, 13 April.

As agreed upon in Marrakech, our objective is to provide the CCWG with as much time as possible to review these draft Bylaws to confirm that the proposals are adequately reflected, with the minimum time being 7 full calendar days.

To facilitate the CCWG’s review, we will be organizing two meetings on:

·      5 April from 19:00-21:00 UTC, and

·      7 April from 12:00-14:00 UTC,

where the legal teams can answer any questions we have with respect to the draft Bylaws. Prior to submission to the CCWG, the external counsel to the CCWG will be asked to confirm that the Bylaws are an appropriate reflection of the CCWG’s proposal.

We do not anticipate any plenary CCWG calls before the Bylaw review calls on 5 and 7 April. The IRP subgroup may have a meeting next week to discuss the IRP section of the Bylaws, but we leave this decision to Becky who is leading the effort on developing further IRP implementation guidance.

Implementation and WS2

Once the Bylaws work is complete, we will turn our focus to our inventory of WS2 items. However, this does not prevent anyone in the group from launching into discussions on the mailing list and self-organizing around the topics.

Regarding mailing lists, we have decided to keep the conversation on the main CCWG list until there is enough interest and discussion to launch a separate sub-group list. This way, we can manage the prioritization and sequencing of our work based on the group’s interest. To help us make a determination on when to launch a separate mailing list, it would be useful for the discussion on the main CCWG mailing list to be around scope, initial research, work plan, etc. It should be noted that the Human Rights effort already has a mailing list (former “WP4” group), and anyone interested in joining that mailing list may contact acct-staff.

Thank you,

Mathieu, Leon, Thomas,

Co-Chairs, CCWG-Accountability