Dear Jonathan: We suggest softening the public forum statement in the following manner, in advance of framing it in a letter to the Board of Directors. The GNSO Council would like to remind the ICANN staff and Board that it is the only entity charged with policy development and providing recommendations to the Board on substantive policies relating to generic top level domains. The GNSO Council recently provided advice in response to a letter from the CEO to the effect that an issue being considered was a matter of policy, rather than implementation. It was Staff's view that the issue was implementation and not policy, and accordingly it was the Staff's decision to proceed with implementation of what the majority of the Council believed was policy. It is the Council's firmly held view that when there is not an agreement on whether or not such an item is policy, as in this case, that the Staff and/or the ICANN Board must refer back to the Council before proceeding further. Indeed, as a general point, it is the Council's view that should it provide policy advice to the Staff and/or the Board in the future, then in the event that Staff and/or Board seek to act in a manner that is not consistent with the Council's advice, then the Staff and/or Board must consult with the GNSO Council, explain the rationale behind its decision, and allow the Council, at a minimum, to respond to the Staff or Board's decision. Thank you, Brian Brian J. Winterfeldt Partner bwinterfeldt@steptoe.com<mailto:bwinterfeldt@steptoe.com> Steptoe ------------------------------------------- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org> on behalf of Yoav Keren[SMTP:YOAV@DTNT.COM] Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:34:46 PM To: Jonathan Robinson Cc: Volker Greimann - Key-Systems GmbH; GNSO Council List Subject: Re: [council] Public Forum Statement Auto forwarded by a Rule That is a good move forward Jonathan. Thank you for getting our message out there. Yoav Yoav Keren CEO Domain The Net Technologies Ltd. ב-11 באפר 2013, בשעה 14:02, "Jonathan Robinson" <jrobinson@afilias.info<mailto:jrobinson@afilias.info>> כתב/ה: That was the plan. Statement plus letter. It's good that we are invited to send not simply sending in a vacuum. Jonathan Volker Greimann - Key-Systems GmbHz <vgreimann@key-systems.net<mailto:vgreimann@key-systems.net>> wrote: So we end up with a letter after all... Volker Sent from my iPad On 11.04.2013, at 18:27, Jonathan Robinson <jrobinson@afilias.info<mailto:jrobinson@afilias.info>> wrote: All, I made the statement and Chris Dispain, chair of the session asked for it to be sent to the board. Jonathan ************************************************************************************ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals & computer viruses. ************************************************************************************ ************************************************************************************ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals & computer viruses. ************************************************************************************