Dear Councilors,

Please find attached for your consideration the Final Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures, which is also available here: http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/new-gtlds/subsequent-procedures-final-issue-04dec15-en.pdf. You may recall that the Council requested an Issue Report on the topic at the Buenos Aires meeting in June 2015. Under the ICANN Bylaws, an Issue Report is a mandatory preceding step to a possible PDP that is initiated by the GNSO Council. The Preliminary Issue Report was published for public comment on 31 August 2015, with the forum closing on 30 October 2015. The Report of Public Comments received is expected to be published on 4 December 2015 and made available here: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/new-gtld-subsequent-prelim-2015-08-31-en. 

In preparing this Final Issue Report, all the public comments received were analyzed and, where relevant, incorporated into the Final Issue Report. The Report of Public Comments has also been added as a separate Annex. 

The staff recommendation is that the Council initiate a PDP to consider and analyze issues discussed in the Final Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures to determine whether changes or adjustments to the existing policy recommendations in the Final Report on the Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains are needed.  The outcome of the PDP may lead to (i) amending or overriding existing policy principles, recommendations, and implementation guidelines; (ii) developing new policy recommendations, and/or (iii) supplementing or developing new implementation guidance.

The relevant motions are currently in preparation for proposal by a GNSO Councilor.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.