[council] Motion re: IRT on IGO-INGO Curative Rights

Dec. 19, 2025

      Dear Fellow Councilors,

As you may know, I am the Council liaison to the IRT on IGO-INGO Curative Rights project.  One of the principal issues that this IRT is working on is how UDRPs are handled when the complainant is an IGO/IGNO. These organizations are not always subject to court jurisdiction so the other option for dispute resolution is an arbitration proceeding.  Specifically, we are looking at the issue of when can parties exit a UDRP proceeding and proceed to arbitration. The Final Report could be interpreted in a manner that would limit when parties could proceed to arbitration but the IRT generally thinks the approach should be that parties can exit the UDRP at any time and proceed to arbitration if they so choose.  This would make these UDRPs for IGO/IGNOs have the same provisions as regular UDPRs whereby parties can pretty much opt out at any time for another dispute resolution proceeding.  The IRT has requested Council’s input on this issue and along those lines, I will be submitting a motion for a vote at our January meeting.  A draft motion is attached along with a letter that explains this issue.

On a personal level, I think the IRT is absolutely correct in their interpretation. It wouldn’t make sense to have UDRP and URS proceedings for NGO/INGOs have significantly different mechanisms to exit them for alternative dispute resolution proceedings.

Finally, I want to reiterate that this is NOT an issue of ICANN staff and the IRT having a significant disagreement as to what the final report says.  Rather, the IRT recognizes that this is a significant issue and we wanted Council to be aware of it and the provide guidance on the desired interpretation.

Please see the attached and let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, Damon

J. Damon Ashcraft
, P.C.

[council] Motion re: IRT on IGO-INGO Curative Rights

Ashcraft, Damon