Dear Colleagues,

As you remember, the Board asked us to put in writing our struggle with the selection of ccTLD representatives to the IFRT. Please find a draft below.

Please let me know by 30 November if you have any suggestions on how to improve the text.

Thank you!

]{atrina

During the bilateral meeting between the ICANN Board and ccNSO on Wednesday, 24 October, 2018, we briefly touched upon the issue the ccNSO is facing in selecting a non-ccNSO member on the IANA Function Review team (IFRT). As agreed, the ccNSO Council is sending you a more detailed explanation of the issue.

According to section 18.7 (a) and (b) of the ICANN Bylaws, the ccNSO Council is required to appoint 3 members on the IFRT:

(a) Two representatives from ccNSO member ccTLD registry operator representatives;

(b) at least one (1) non-ccNSO ccTLD representative who is associated with a ccTLD registry operator that is not a representative of the ccNSO.

This needs to be read in the context of section 18.8 (c ): the ccNSO and Registries Stakeholder Group shall not appoint multiple members who are citizens of countries from the same ICANN Geographic Region.

On 20 July, initial information about the coming call for volunteers was sent out to all email lists under auspices of the ccNSO, including the ccTLD world list to which all ccTLD managers are subscribed. Following that,

from 10 August to 24 August, the call for volunteers was announced to all email lists;
from 27 August to 10 September, second call for volunteers was announced to all email lists;
as suggested in the Bylaws, the ccNSO Council reached out to the Regional ccTLD organisations who informed their members on their respective email lists and encouraged their members to apply;
An announcements was published on the ccNSO Website;
Several reminders we sent to the email lists – 14 August, 21 August, 7 September.

Unfortunately, despite the efforts listed above, the ccNSO was not able to secure a volunteer from a ccTLD registry operator that is not a member of the ccNSO.

To ensure that the ccTLD community at large is properly represented, the ccNSO Council decided to appoint three members to the IFRT. The third person, also a representative of a member of the ccNSO, is appointed on an interim basis. This person will step down and be replaced on the IFRT if a candidate from a non-ccNSO ccTLD manager with the required skills and experience, as defined in the original call for volunteers, steps forward. It must be noted that if this person is from an ICANN Geographic Region of one of the two other selected and most preferred representatives from the ccNSO membership, it will have a knock-on effect: to meet the hard-coded diversity criteria, the representative will have to step down.

Since 1 October 2016 when the new ICANN Bylaws came into effect, the membership of the ccNSO has grown by 6%. In future, the continuing growth of the ccNSO and/or the geographic diversity requirement will make it harder and harder - if not impossible - to select the most qualified representatives of ccTLDs as members to the IFRT.

Our advice would be to change / interpret the section 18.7 (a) and (b) to mean:

“Three representatives appointed by the ccNSO from ccTLD registry operator representatives; to the extent possible and reasonable, the ccNSO should strive to appoint at least one non-ccNSO ccTLD representative who is associated with a ccTLD registry operator that is not a representative of the ccNSO.”