Dear all, First, thank you for the good and productive GNSO Council engagement in Marrakech. While there were no votes or motions to consider, we had a packed agenda with a lot of substantive discussion. As discussed, the Council has a lot of work to do over the coming four months leading in to ICANN 66 in Montreal, and we need contributions from all Councilors to deliver on our goals. To maintain our momentum from Marrakech, I’d like to recap my view of the key Council topics and takeaways. Please review the following carefully and respond with any additions, edits, or clarifying questions. It’s important we’re all on the same page as the 2018-2019 GNSO Council advances our work, and as we prepare for the AGM in November. 1. PDP 3.0 Implementation The PDP 3.0 implementation effort is being conducted by a small team of volunteers led by Rafik and Pam. That group had a side meeting in Marrakech and agreed to increase the pace of its work. It is very important that the Council deliver on the PDP 3.0 implementation this calendar year and before the next GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session in January. Good progress is being made, and the additional time/energy will help to ensure the efforts of the last 18+ months are formalized. If anyone else would like to volunteer, please contact Pam and Rafik directly. 2. Review of IDN policy issues, establishment of a new PDP, coordination with ccNSO The GNSO Council needs to review and act on the ICANN Board’s resolution from Kobe and consider a PDP for IDN Variants at the top level, and to coordinate with the ccNSO to ensure a consistent policy across gTLDs and ccTLDs. We also need to consider the IDN issue holistically and address policy development for existing gTLDs, future gTLDs, and the implication of the new IDN Guidelines 4.0 implication on IDN policy. GNSO policy staff have the action item to propose charter language for this effort, but the Council will need to engage and act soon, so this does not languish. A small team of Councilors and other subject matter experts is being formed to lead the Council on this topic. If you are interested in contributing, please email Steve so you can be added to the email distro. 3. IGO CRP -- Next Steps with ICANN Board and GAC/IGOs As discussed, a small group of Council met with a small group of GAC and IGOs to discuss next steps forward on the IGO CRP issue, specifically the chartering of a separate and dedicated work team under the umbrella of the RPM PDP WG to consider the referred Recommendation 5 and the issue more broadly. We also invited subject matter experts Heather Forrest, Susan Kawaguchi and interested ICANN Board members (Avri Doria participated from the Board). The ICANN Board issued a letter just prior to Marrakech indicating they are initiating a public comment period on the Council’s approved recommendations 1-4, will not enter into a facilitated dialogue at this time, and hope the GNSO Council and GAC might find a solution through ongoing engagement in the new dedicated work team. Council’s next steps are to form a charter drafting team and to engage with the GAC/IGOs to secure input to inform that effort. 4. Review of RPM PDP WG Charter for Phase 2, PDP 3.0 reforms Related to #3 above, the GNSO Council needs to review the existing RPM PDP WG charter for Phase 2 and propose PDP 3.0 reform improvements. We will need to initiate a charter drafting team to consider this and make recommendations to Council. This is important on three fronts – (1) general PDP management, (2) implementation of PDP 3.0 reforms, and (3) incorporating the new dedicated work team on IGO issues in a manner that does not distract from or interfere with the ongoing Phase 1 work of the RPM PDP WG. Paul McGrady as our Council liaison to the RPM PDP WG is our lead on this. Please advise if you would like to volunteer to contribute. 5. GNSO-ccNSO Collaboration on ICANN Strategic Planning and Budget As discussed with the ccNSO in Kobe and in Marrakech, the GNSO Council agreed to consider engagement/collaboration with the ccNSO on areas of common interest in our review of ICANN’s strategic planning and budget efforts. The GNSO SCBO and the ccNSO’s budget group need to engage and deliver recommendations, even if those recommendations do not highlight areas of common interest. I suggest Phillippe and Maarten as our respective liaisons coordinate this effort between the two groups. Related, we will have some changes to our SCBO roster, and we need to ensure our community colleagues with budget/accounting/financial expertise are able to contribute to this important work. 6. GNSO-ccNSO Collaboration on input to the MSM Evolution effort As discussed in our joint session in Marrakech, the GNSO and ccNSO Councils have agreed to discuss possible areas of common interests around ICANN’s Evolution of the Multistakeholder Model process, currently being run by Brian Cute under the ICANN Board’s direction. While this effort is designed to inform ICANN’s strategic planning and FY2020-2021 budget cycle, there may be synergy between this group and our joint group mentioned in #5 above. Regardless, we need a small group of volunteers to engage with ccNSO colleagues on this. If you are interested in leading or contributing to the Council’s review of the MSM Evolution process, please advise. 7. Call for repopulating the IRP IoT and establishing the IRP Standing Panel As discussed during our Wednesday Council meeting, and formally announced by the ICANN Board later that day, ICANN has issued a formal call for community volunteers to repopulate the IRP Implementation Oversight Team (IOT). The deadline for submitting EOIs is 31 July 2019, so we have a short turn here. All Councilors should follow up with their respective SGs and Cs to ensure the best pool of qualified candidates is identified and available to progress this critical work. As noted in our meeting, the IRP is a very important accountability mechanism and these reforms and updates are the output of the IANA Transition and ICANN Accountability and Transparency CCWG recommendations. Please make this a priority with your groups over the coming month. 8. ICANN Board referrals of CCT-RT recommendations to GNSO Council and GNSO PDP WGs During its ICANN 64 Kobe workshop, the ICANN Board chose to not accept all the recommendations of the CCT-RT and instead refer many of them for further review. In addition to many being referred to ICANN Org for a “costing” review, some of those have been referred to the GNSO Council and/or our PDP WGs. As such, the GNSO Council needs to conduct a formal and careful review of these referred CCT-RT recommendations to understand the impact on ongoing policy development work, and/or the need for additional assignments to our PDP WGs. If anyone would like to volunteer to help lead or contribute to this effort, please advise. 9. CCEG-IG and ICANN’s Regulatory/Legislative Tracking Effort During the Marrakech meeting of the CCEG on Internet Governance, there was discussion of ICANN’s “legislative tracking” effort, and the potential for the CCEG-IG to become a coordinating or focal point for the ICANN Board, ICANN Org and ICANN Community in this effort. Further, during the GNSO Council meeting with the GAC, I flagged this as a possibility and asked if GAC members would be willing/interested in contributing. The reaction was generally positive, but non-committal. This development has been supported, at least privately, by Goran, and I expect the GNSO Council and community will want to closely track these developments and to engage accordingly. There is no current plan to formally charter the CCEG-IG along these lines, so we will want to ensure we’re fully aware of discussions taking place in that group. I note that Ayden and Paul have already circulated a draft note on this topic. 10. EPDP Phase 1 -- impacts to existing ICANN policies, procedures and contracts As addressed during the Thursday afternoon ICANN 65 Cross-Community session, we have initiated the review and community engagement on impacts of the EPDP Phase 1 recommendations on other existing policies, procedures and contractual provisions. The GNSO Council and ICANN Org, led by me and Trang, will continue to work on this effort and to incorporate feedback received during the CC session. Our goal is to clearly delineate where impacts are incompatible with other existing polices/processes/contract terms, where there may be urgent mitigation required (SSR, negative impact on registrants, etc.), and then assign the further review and action to the relevant group – GNSO Council for policy, ICANN Org/IRT for process implementation, and GDD/Contracted Parties for contractual provisions. I welcome input from others as we take this process forward. If you want to volunteer, please advise. 11. EPDP Phase 2 coordination with ICANN Org – Goran’s “Strawberry” team and September engagement with the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). We heard from Goran during our GNSO Council working session/lunch with the ICANN Board that his ICANN Org so-called “strawberry team” is working to prepare for formal engagement with the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) during its plenary meeting in September. This was further confirmed during the ICANN Org engagement with the EPDP Phase 2 team meeting on Thursday. The goal of this effort is to inform the EDPB about the potential of a Unified Access Model based on the TSG framework, and to generate feedback from the EDPB. The ultimate goal is to secure an indication or guidance that such a model would be both viable under GDPR and could sufficiently transfer risk/liability from contracted parties to ICANN as a centralized party. We as a Council and the EPDP need to understand if ICANN playing a centralized role as controller for all RDS data, with contracted parties as processors, can be compliant with GDPR. If so, we know we can design policies in support of that framework. If the answer is no, the EPDP can then focus on desining policies in support of a more distributed model with contracted parties/registrars as controllers. The Council and EPDP need to be aware of, and contribute to, these ongoing discussions between ICANN Org and the EDPB. 12. Other Items * Letter from the SSR2-RT citing further delays, lack of support, and resource demands * GNSO obligations as a member of the Empowered Community – upcoming changes to ICANN Bylaws and actions of the Empowered Community Administration (ECA) * Anything else? I invite our ICANN policy staff colleagues to augment this with any additional views or action items, and corrections are always welcome. Thanks for your attention! Best regards, Keith p.s. NO PHOTOS!! 😉