Dear Colleagues,

I don't often write to the ALAC mailing list as I mostly observe what's going on here, but seeing what seems to be no action on a Core Accountability measure of ICANN being simply cast aside, and with possibly only three days to go, with neither action on the OFB working group, or the ALAC mailing list, it is time for me to point something out urgently.

On 19 May 2025, the ICANN Board held a special meeting in which it passed Resolutions 2025.05.19.01 – 2025.05.19.06.
These can be read at: https://www.icann.org/en/board-activities-and-meetings/materials/approved-resolutions-special-meeting-of-the-icann-board-19-05-2025-en

Summarised:

The ICANN Board has directed its President and CEO to design a review program aimed at improving accountability, transparency, and effectiveness within ICANN, with an emphasis on community-led processes. To achieve this, a community dialogue will be initiated to identify key areas for improvement.

Key resolutions include:

Progressing the Continuous Improvement Program (CIP) while deferring Organisational Reviews until the first cycle is complete.
Concluding the Pilot Holistic Review (PHR), allowing ongoing work within SOs and ACs on continuous improvement.
Deferring ATRT4, SSR, and RDS Specific Reviews until the community dialogue informs next steps.
Considering future actions on Organisational Reviews after one CIP cycle.
Planning a community dialogue on ICANN Reviews, incorporating input from the ICANN84 Public Meeting.
Recognising contributions from the PHR Team and the broader ICANN community in shaping review processes.

The rationale says that the Board's decisions reflect a commitment to collaborative review mechanisms that ensure ICANN remains effective and transparent.

Unfortunately, in practice, the resolution that the Board has passed is likely to foster exactly the opposite.

This decision was transmitted to SO/AC Chairs and can be read at: https://atlarge.icann.org/en/advice_statements/14007

The Board took this decision against ALAC Advice provided at: https://atlarge.icann.org/en/advice_statements/14003

So what are we to do, as an Advisory Committee, besides being shocked and stunned?

The ICANN Board has a duty to act according to the ICANN Bylaws.

The ICANN Bylaws mandate Periodic Review Mechanisms and also mandate Reconsideration Requests as part of Article IV of its Bylaws published on https://www.icann.org/en/governance/bylaws#article4

Section 4.2. RECONSIDERATION
Section 4.4. PERIODIC REVIEW OF ICANN STRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS
Section 4.5. ANNUAL REVIEW
Section 4.6. SPECIFIC REVIEWS

The periodicity of Reviews is mandated in order to avoid situations where reviews would be stopped altogether.

"Section 4.6 (b) (vi) The Accountability and Transparency Review shall be conducted no less frequently than every five years measured from the date the previous Accountability and Transparency Review Team was convened."

The last Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3) was appointed on 20 December 2018: https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/members-announced-for-the-third-review-of-icanns-accountability-and-transparency-atrt3-20-12-2018-en

Thus the next ATRT should have been appointed by "no less frequently than every five years" thus by 20 December 2023.

The Board at the time decided to delay the start of ATRT4. We are now 18 months late to start this.

It is now continuing to extend the delay to the start of ATRT4, thus contravening Bylaw Section 4.6 (b) (vi).

According to:

Section 4.2 (c) A Requestor may submit a request for reconsideration or review of an ICANN action or inaction ("Reconsideration Request") to the extent that the Requestor has been adversely affected by:

(i) One or more Board or Staff actions or inactions that contradict ICANN's Mission, Commitments, Core Values and/or established ICANN policy(ies);

The Board is acting against its own Bylaws.

The ALAC should submit a Reconsideration Request without further delay, based on the fact that the Board is now acting against its own Bylaws.

A Community Reconsideration Request might have even more weight, but we have to be quite lucid about the fact that some other SOs/ACs/SGs, such as the Country Code Name Supporting Organisation (ccNSO) and the Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) would oppose such Community Reconsideration as they have expressed their support for interrupting the review cycle.

I have marked this message as "URGENT" because whilst the Bylaws mention a 30 day period for Reconsideration Requests, the Web Page explaining the reconsideration process ( https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/mechanisms-2014-03-20-en ) mentions only 15 days - obviously an error somewhere, but you never know, with ICANN...

I'll remind everyone: whilst Bylaw-mandated Reviews might be tedious, repetitive and introduce a large workload on the Community, they are Bylaw-mandated for a reason: in order to make sure that ICANN remains Accountable, Transparent, enhancing Public Trust, and to ensure its decision-making processes remain open, fair, and aligned with the public interest.

The reason given in relation to delaying ATRT4 is that ICANN Org is struggling to implement all of the recommendations made in past reviews, and ATRT3 in particular. This failure of ICANN Org to implement recommendations is unacceptable. It is about time that the ALAC calls this out. It used to be the US Department of Commerce (DoC) that used to do this and bang on the table. Unfortunately we now are reaching a level of complacency that is contravening ICANN's own Bylaws and this has to stop.

I trust that you, the ALAC acting in the best interests of Internet users worldwide, will support filing a Reconsideration Request as soon as possible.

Kindest regards,

Olivier Crépin-Leblond
(writing in my own personal capacity)

_______________________________________________
ALAC mailing list -- alac@icann.org
To unsubscribe send an email to alac-leave@icann.org

At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org
ALAC Working Wiki: https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.