Dear Councillors, Please find the resolutions passed by the GNSO Council in its meeting on Thursday, 16 April 2015. These are also published on page: http://gnso.icann.org/en/council/resolutions Consent Agenda 1. Adoption of the Standing Committee on Improvement Implementation (SCI) Review Request Concerning Seconding and Amendments WHEREAS: 1. The SCI submitted to the GNSO Council on 05 March 2015 a Review Request that noted the following issue: a. Although there is currently a rule regarding the deadline for timely submission of motions for voting by the GNSO Council (see Section 3.3 of the Operating Procedures), there is none regarding: (i) whether, how and by whom a properly submitted motion is to be seconded, and (ii) treatment of proposed amendments to such motions as either "friendly" or "unfriendly". b. These have been supported by Council practice to date as opposed to operating procedural rules. RESOLVED: 1. The GNSO Council requests that the SCI codifies the existing customary practices of the GNSO Council (as described above). 2. If the SCI believes that the current practices are inappropriate, the SCI should convey its reasons for such belief to the Council and develop new processes to govern the seconding of motions and amendments to motions. 3. The GNSO Council suggests that in carrying out this task the SCI consult past GNSO Chairs and Councilors as well as commonly accepted guides and practices (such as Robert's Rules of Order) and other ICANN bodies (such as the Board and other SO/ACs). Consent Agenda 2. Adoption of the Standing Committee on Improvement Implementation (SCI) Review Request Concerning Overlap of Waiver and Resubmission WHEREAS: 1. The SCI submitted to the GNSO Council on 05 March 2015 a Review Request that noted the following issue: a. The latest version of the Procedures incorporates approved new procedures recommended by the SCI relating to the Council's ability to: (i) waive the general rule of a 10-day deadline for the submission of motions for voting (Section 3.3.2), and (ii) permit a motion that has been voted on but not adopted to be resubmitted for reconsideration (Section 4.3.3). 2. The Council's original request that the SCI consider these two situations did not explicitly ask that the SCI consider also the possible interplay between them (e.g. if a resubmitted motion is sent to the Council after the 10-day deadline applicable to the next scheduled Council meeting). 3. Although the SCI discussed this issue, it did not reach consensus on whether and how to address the potential problem. RESOLVED: 1. The GNSO Council requests the SCI to consider whether or not there is a need to include a further rule (possibly as an additional paragraph under the new Section 3.3.2) that specifically addresses the possible interplay between the new rules applicable to waiver of the 10-day motion deadline and resubmission of a motion. 3. Amendment to the charter for the IGO-INGO access to Curative Rights Protection Mechanisms PDP Working Group. WHEREAS: 1. On 5 June 2014 the GNSO Council approved<http://gnso.icann.org/en/council/resolutions#201406> the initiation of a Policy Development Process (PDP) to explore whether amendments to existing curative rights mechanisms (such as the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) procedure) or the creation of a separate, narrowly tailored dispute resolution mechanism will be necessary to address the needs of International Governmental Organizations (IGO) and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO) in protecting their names and acronyms at the second level in generic top-level domains (gTLD); 2. On 25 June 2014 the GNSO Council chartered<http://gnso.icann.org/en/council/resolutions#201406> the IGO-INGO Access to Curative Rights Protection Mechanisms Working Group to begin work on the PDP; 3. The Charter<http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/igo-ingo-crp-access-charter-24jun14-en.pdf> for the Working Group contemplates that in relation to IGOs the Working Group is to use the IGO List<https://community.icann.org/download/attachments/48347918/GAC%20List%20of%20...> provided to ICANN by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) in March 2013, which is based on the eligibility criteria<http://www.iana.org/domains/int/policy> for an IGO to register a domain name in the .int gTLD, and which was the basis upon which the PDP Working Group on the Protection of International Organization Identifiers in All gTLDs made their consensus recommendations in November 2013; 4. After analyzing the historical documents, legal texts and research related to the issue of an IGO's standing to file a complaint under the UDRP and URS, the Working Group has reached a preliminary conclusion that a more appropriate basis for standing under any applicable curative rights dispute resolution process may be the legal protections for IGO names and acronyms that are conferred by Article 6ter of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property; 5. This preliminary conclusion is supported by the May 2002 recommendation<https://community.icann.org/download/attachments/48347918/WIPO%20SCT%202002%...> of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Standing Committee for Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications as well as the December 2011 open letter<https://www.icann.org/en/news/correspondence/igo-counsels-to-beckstrom-et-al...> sent to ICANN by legal counsel of twenty-eight IGOs; and 6. The Working Group has requested that the GNSO Council approve an amendment to the Working Group Charter that will include the flexibility to consider all appropriate eligibility options. RESOLVED: 1. The GNSO Council approves the request from the Working Group to amend its Charter, as follows: Where, under "Mission and Scope", the current Charter reads: "For purposes of this PDP, the scope of IGO and INGO identifiers is to be limited to those identifiers previously listed by the GNSO's PDP WG on the Protection of International Organization Identifiers in All gTLDs as protected by their consensus recommendations (designated by that WG as Scope 1 and Scope 2 identifiers, and listed in Annex 2 of the Final Issue Report)." It is hereby amended to read: "For purposes of this PDP, the WG shall take into account any criteria for IGO or INGO protection that may be appropriate, including any that may have been developed previously, such as the list of IGO and INGO identifiers that was used by the GNSO's prior PDP WG on the Protection of International Organization Identifiers in All gTLDs as the basis for their consensus recommendations and the GAC list of IGOs as provided to ICANN in March 2013." Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Kind regards, Glen Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org