Fellow Councillors In order that we all remain fully informed regarding the progress of the Accountability WG I am forwarded the attached which I received as a member of the list, which intimates at a further (short?) hiccough in the process. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] A message from the Co-Chairs Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 18:19:15 -0600 From: León Felipe Sánchez Ambía <leonfelipe@sanchez.mx> To: Accountability Cross Community <accountability-cross-community@icann.org> CC: ACCT-Staff (acct-staff@icann.org) <acct-staff@icann.org> Dear all, As you are aware, we intended to publish our Final Report today (19 February 2016) for Chartering Organization consideration. We are ready to do so, except for one issue where we would like to consider options as a full group. There is, still, ongoing discussion on the issue of thresholds for Board removal in Recommendation #2, which raised concerns in our report after we came to a compromise on Board consideration of GAC Advice (Recommendation #11). Since then, we have tried to propose compromise text that would be acceptable by different groups (c.f. the 12 February and 17 February drafts, posted at https://community.icann.org/x/iw2AAw). We received comments on this issue, and in some cases, minority statements, from members and participants in the ALAC, GAC, GNSO, and the Board. Earlier today, ICANN Chairman, Steve Crocker, posted a note, apparently on behalf of the Icann Board, outlining Board concerns with the latest attempt at compromise text proposed on 17 February: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2016-February/0.... While these last minute interventions are deeply disappointing for those of us who worked extremely hard, within the group and within their respective communities, to build bridges and promote compromise, our main target and duty remains to achieve a stable level of consensus, respecting the bottom-up, multistakeholder nature of the process. It is fortunate that the Board provided this input before we published the report, since it enables us to assess the potential consequences of a Board disagreement later in the process. We believe this issue must be discussed before sending our Final Report to Chartering Organizations. At the very least, we would like the opportunity to discuss a way forward and process as full group on next Tuesdayâs CCWG-Accountability call at 06:00 UTC. There are many options and directions the group can take at this stage, each with different implications and considerations, and these options should be discussed as a group. Until the Tuesday call, letâs keep open channels of communication on our mailing list and work towards a solution. We will also reach out to the Chartering Organizations to inform them of the change in our schedule. As co-chairs, we renew our call upon every Member, upon every Participant, our call upon community leaders especially in the ICANN Board, in the GNSO and in the GAC to step away from confronting each other, to engage constructively and recognize each otherâs value to the multistakeholder model. If you believe that the multistakeholder model can deliver, now is the time to act accordingly. Thank you, Thomas, León, Mathieu /CCWG-Accountability Co-Chairs/