·        The ICANN core value cited as the reason the Report provides for more constituencies is about broad participation in policy making.  The formation of more constituencies is not the only way to expand participation, and it ignores the existence and role of the ALAC.  ALAC, with its representatives from five regions, from a wide range of language groups and myriad internet user groups is far better placed to provide that broad participation. A better and more achievable way to achieve the broad participation sought is to support and encourage ALAC members to engage in policy processes.

Whilst the ALAC support almost all of the recommendations made in the Westlake Report, the ALAC is concerned that the vast majority of the recommendations focus on GNSO Working Groups and suggest making small adjustments rather than taking a serious look at the GNSO Council's bicameral structure.

Examples of areas for review are numerous and not limited to:

·        The current structure of the GNSO Council provides the ability for a more united vote in the Contracted Party House whilst fragmenting the Non-Contracted Party house to the point of imbalance. The unprecedented growth of Contracted Parties caused by the new gTLD Program has not been addressed. What might have been a homogeneous Constituency might now be more heterogeneous and the potential consequences of this change have not been studied. For example, City TLDs are an entirely new breed of Registry; so are Brand TLDs. How does this affect the current status quo? How would the people using City TLDs have their voice heard

·        Other commenters in the At-Large Community have noted that the proposals for more geographically balanced representation appeared to be focused on finding new participants from outside the GNSO’s usual territory. A question to ask is how many gTLD registries and gTLDs are domiciled both legally and operationally in each of the ICANN regions both before and after the recent expansion of gTLD space under the GNSO's auspices. The Westlake Review misses on the opportunity to potentially reveal a hidden pattern that the ICANN GNSO is self-reinforcing the domain name business geopolitically and whether that is underpinning the Westlake observation of the concentration of the GNSO’s constituencies as North American and European.

·        GNSO Working Groups are open for all participants including non-GNSO Constituency members – but the GNSO Council, thanks to its very structure, has the ability to affect a working group’s results. Voting is one of the ways to support or halt recommendations from a bottom-up PDP.

The ALAC believes that the complex issues of GNSO structure and processes need to be studied now. The ALAC reminds the Reviewers of the At-Large Future Challenges Working Group R3 White Paper (http://www.atlarge.icann.org/correspondence/correspondence-01oct12-en.htm ) drafted in 2012 and containing proposals that should be explored.

Reinforcing ALAC’s view is its recollection of several of its members that during the first GNSO Review, it was understood that Constituencies and the creation of “Stakeholder Groups” were going to be reviewed at the next iteration. Tragically, this is missing from the current report.