Dear Councillors,

 

During our vote on the Recommendations report last week, we had a discussion about the intended content and triggering points for sending such a report to the board, what’s the rule/practice etc. and staff agreed to provide some clarifications as to what is actually documented and what it isn’t. Mary kindly provided the following note for our review/questions.

 

Regards,

Philippe  

 

 

Dear Philippe, Pam and Tatiana,

 

I write to follow up on the discussion during the GNSO Council’s Public Meeting earlier today, about the timeline for transmitting a GNSO Council Recommendations Report to the Board as well as the scope and contents of such a report. I hope that this note is a useful reference for you and the Council regarding the existing process, without presuming whether or if the Council may wish to standardize future practice.

 

As you know, the ICANN Bylaws require that the GNSO Council approve a separate Recommendations Report for delivery to the ICANN Board, after it approves PDP recommendations. Here is some additional information to supplement the staff comments from the call today:

 

• Format and Content: Neither the Bylaws nor the PDP Manual prescribe a particular format or specific contents for a Recommendations Report.  However, org staff developed a template a number of years ago that has since been used for all such reports, with sections that describe (among other things) the GNSO Council’s deliberations, whether any external expert advice was sought, and the expected implementation impact (including on parties that will be affected by the recommended policy). As a matter of practice, it has been the exception rather than the norm to include the complete PDP Final Report as part of the Recommendations Report, as it seemed more critical to maintain the conciseness of the latter, especially given the fact that the Board receives and reviews the full Final Report in any event (along with all the public comments submitted during the Public Comment Proceeding held prior to Board action). I’ll also note here that the Recommendations Report typically includes at minimum a link to the full Final Report and the Council’s deliberations.

 

• Timing of Submission to the Board: Neither the Bylaws nor the PDP Manual specify a time frame or deadline for delivery of the report to the Board. Looking at the various PDPs from the last decade, you will see that transmission of the Recommendations Report has sometimes taken place after the mandatory Public Comment Proceeding prior to Board action or, at times, while it is ongoing. More recently, staff has tended to send the Recommendations Reports to the Board before opening the Public Comment Proceeding, in view of the fact that the PDP Manual recommends (but does not require) that the Council take action on the Recommendations Report at its first meeting following its approval of the PDP recommendations “if feasible”.

 

In general, staff strives to transmit all reports and documents as expediently as possible in the circumstances. Of the PDPs that were completed in the last six-plus years, all Recommendations Reports (with the sole exception of RPMs) were generally sent either within a matter of days of Council approval or, in those cases where a Public Comment Proceeding was open prior to the transmission, shortly after the proceeding ended.

 

I hope this information is helpful and also demonstrates that there has never been an instance where ICANN org staff has deviated from the applicable rules and requirements, or sought to artificially prolong or hinder the Board’s process for consideration of GNSO PDP recommendations.

 

Thanks and cheers

Mary

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