GNSO Council, As you recall from the 17 October 2012 Toronto meeting, the Council adopted the motion to initiate a PDP to be completed in an expedited manner on the Protections of Certain International Organization Names in all gTLDs (see 20121017-2 http://gnso.icann.org/en/resolutions#20121017). The GNSO Council decided at this meeting that a group of volunteers should be convened quickly to draft the charter for the IGO-INGO Protection PDP Working Group, which will likely include the members from the IOC/RCRC Drafting Team. The first meeting of the IGO-INGO Protection Charter Drafting Team is scheduled to occur on 31 October 2012 at 18:00 UTC. Calendar notices and request for volunteers will be sent out shortly. To expedite initiation of the PDP, Staff developed the attached first drafts of the IGO-INGO Protection WG Charter and proposed work plan. The draft Charter proposes that the future WG create two sub-groups (A & B) to address the different scope and timelines for addressing the issues of special protections for the IOC/RCRC names and IGO/INGO names separately. We’d like to request your particular attention be given to the Mission & Scope, Objectives & Goals, and Deliverables & Timeframes sections of the Charter. The draft proposed work plan is also provided to understand key milestones of the PDP efforts and external events planned through the first quarter of 2013. Please note that this is a working draft. Staff is checking internally on the expert opinion issue, and we’d like to propose updating this work plan once we receive confirmation that we can obtain the expert opinion. Because the IOC/RCRC DT members will likely participate in the IGO-INGO PDP, Staff suggests that the current IOC/RCRC DT be suspended. It is expected that the remaining IOC/RCRC DT efforts, after the close of the public comment period, will be addressed by sub-group A of the PDP WG mentioned above. We look forward to meeting with members of the Drafting Team next week. In the meantime, Staff would like to hear the Council’s view about this go-forward plan and will incorporate any feedback that the Council has. Supporting Staff: Brian Peck, Margie Milam, Berry Cobb Thank you. ICANN Policy Team