Greetings fellow councilors,

For those not paying attention, today marks 552 days since the ccNSO Council, after two plus years of policy development by a dually constituted Working Group of which I had the privilege of chairing, , the issuance of the appropriate Issues report to the Community, a vote by the Community as per our Guidelines for policy development, a subsequent vote by the Council confirming the Community’s approval of the proposed policy, that the policy recommendation was formally submitted to the ICANN Board for its consideration.

By way of contrast, construction of the Eiffel Tower began on 28 January 1887 and was completed on 31 March 1899.  It’s construction thus took 428 days.

That’s 124 fewer days than the ICANN Board has been sitting on its collective arse regarding the Review Mechanism.

Annex B, Section 15(a) and 14(b) state that:

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a. The Board shall meet to discuss the ccNSO Recommendation as soon as feasible after receipt of the Board Report from the Issue Manager, taking into account procedures for Board consideration.

b. The Board shall adopt the ccNSO Recommendation unless by a vote of more than 66% the Board determines that such policy is not in the best interest of the ICANN community or of ICANN.

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The Board, either via its in-house legal tortoise, or its external legal tortoise, Jones, Day, is of the opinion that they are in compliance with Annex B, Sections 15(a) and 15(b) of the ICANN Bylaws.

I do not share that opinion. 

My patience with the Board’s inaction has been exhausted.  The Board’s continued in-action (the next scheduled get-together with the Board’s “ad-hoc” Committee considering this policy is not scheduled until 30.01.2025, making it 582 days since the ccNSO Submitted the proposed policy) is frankly an insult to the ccNSO Community as a supporting organisation within the ICANN Multi-stakeholder model, and an insult to the ccNSO Community volunteers who gave up their time, over more than 60 in-person and tele-conference meetings, to labour on and develop, via consensus, the proposed policy.

I do not use the word “insult” lightly.  What the Board is doing via their in-action is an insult to the ccNSO Community, the overall ICANN Community, and the Council writ-large.  I believe that their continued inaction is also placing the entire mutli-stakeholder model in jeopardy.

When we hashed out how the entire “post transition” model should work in Santa Monica all those years ago now, it was not the intent of the CCWG membership to hand to the ICANN Board essentially unlimited power to ignore policy proposals put forward by the ICANN Community.  It was the opposite.

Yet this is what they think they have.

My question for my fellow Council members is as follows:

Do you wish to continue to be led around by the ICANN Board via the nose ring that they have metaphorically inserted into all of our nostrils, or do you wish to collectively stand up and say “enough is enough” to the Board?

As I said earlier, my patience with the Board’s continued in-action regarding their consideration of the Review Mechanism is exhausted.

Best Regards,

//Stephen

The Board’s “ad-hoc” group