Dear Councilors, During the Council’s public meeting at ICANN82, Support Staff captured the following action item: GNSO Council leadership directs staff to draft a letter for review requesting ICANN org to reconvene the IRT to review the Urgent Requests timeline. Please find a draft letter to ICANN org regarding restarting the EPDP – Temp Spec Phase 1 IRT to review the timeline associated with urgent requests: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uyTIUY4W_6eYE3kUJpejcelnQJHK4HlUFlFnV-dd.... The text of the letter has also been included below for ease of reference. If you have any comments or concerns, please provide them by Wednesday, 26 March. Thank you! Kind regards, Caitlin -- Re: Restart of EPDP - Temp Spec - Phase 1 Implementation Review Team - Urgent request timeline Dear ICANN org colleagues, Following our discussion at ICANN82, the GNSO Council wanted to provide a short update on recent discussions around urgent requests and the associated timeline from EPDP - Temp Spec Phase 1. As you may recall, the GAC recommended proceeding with urgent request discussions in two parallel tracks: (i) authentication of requestors and (ii) response time for urgent requests. With respect to the response time for urgent requests, in its October 2024 letter<https://gac.icann.org/advice/correspondence/outgoing/public/2024-10-15%20Nic...>, the GAC invited the Board and the GNSO Council to identify an expedited procedure for addressing this workstream and “strongly suggest[ed] resuming the work of the IRT, which was halted last summer.” Following two productive trilateral discussions, the Council acknowledged and agreed with the GAC’s suggestion that the discussion regarding the response time for urgent requests could continue within the EPDP - Temp Spec Phase 1 Implementation Review Team. The Council confirmed this understanding during its public meeting at ICANN82<https://icann.zoom.us/rec/play/KvHQ3sylRiqPo_nkfTL_s284vhiZ-LrnBzMB_iuCD5omX...> and encourages ICANN org to resume IRT meetings in the near term. The Council also discussed the authentication of requestors, and some councilors have attended the recent meetings organized by the Public Safety Working Group. The Council understands the importance of this work and looks forward to supporting this group’s progress. At this time, it does not appear that the authentication mechanism is appropriate or ripe for discussion within the IRT, so the Council recommends limiting the upcoming IRT discussions to timeline discussions only. The Council stands ready to assist should there be any additional questions or concerns. Best regards, Greg DiBiase GNSO Chair