Hello All, I note from the Board minutes of the Kuala Lumpur meeting (23 July 2004): http://www.icann.org/minutes/kl-resolutions-23jul04.htm That the ICANN Board asked the President to establish a President's Advisory Committee on IDN, to provide the Board and ICANN community with advice on issues that relate to IDN policies, in particular issues that impact the implementation of IDN especially at the top level. See full resolution below. Regards, Bruce Tonkin Whereas, the ICANN Board recognizes that it is important that the Internet evolve to be more accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set. Whereas, the Board notes that the internationalization of the Internet's domain name system must be accomplished through standards that are open, non-proprietary, and fully compatible with the Internet's existing end-to-end model and that preserve globally unique naming in a universally resolvable public name space. Whereas, the IETF has adopted a four-part protocol suite defining a standard for internationalized domain names in applications that was published as RFCs 3490, 3491, 3492, and 3454. Whereas, a broad range of registries, experts, and other stakeholders in the ICANN community have been working hard for several years to develop registry-level registration policies, for example RFC 3743. Whereas, the ICANN Board has had Working Groups investigate facts and identify issues that may arise concerning IDN's and these Committees have reported to the community. Whereas, the Board reiterates the importance of implementing the technical standards for IDN's in a coordinated manner, that does not destabilize the global, single root, unique identifier system. Whereas the Board recognises that significant work remains to be undertaken outside of ICANN's scope in order to provide end-to-end availability of IDN's to end-users and that close co-ordination of these efforts is needed. Whereas, ICANN is committed to the further study of IDNs in the TLD space, and commits to facilitating venues in which IDN can be discussed, and encourages venues to further encourage the implementation of IDNs. Resolved [04.68] that the ICANN staff report to the Board and community on the implementation status of IDNs and pending issues. Resolved further [04.69] that the ICANN staff work with registries and other administrators who use IDNs to report back on usability, successes, and other relevant experiences. Resolved [04.70] to thank the IDN Workshop organizers and participants for their important contributions to the Workshop, and sharing of knowledge on issues surrounding the implementation of IDN. Resolved [04.71] that the Board instructs the President to establish a President's Advisory Committee on IDN, to provide the Board and ICANN community with advice on issues that relate to IDN policies, in particular issues that impact the implementation of IDN especially at the top level.