To: CWG-Stewardship Chartering SOs and ACs
The ALAC, ccNSO, GAC, GNSO, and SSAC
Dear SO and AC Chairs,
CWG-Stewardship
proposed response to the ICG RFP the IANA Stewardship Transition
The Cross Community Working Group on Naming
Related Functions (CWG-Stewardship) is pleased to provide its Chartering
Organizations with its proposed response to the IANA Stewardship Transition
Coordination Group (ICG) Request for Proposals on the IANA Stewardship
Transition for your consideration and approval as per its Charter.
The response is the result of extensive
work by the CWG’s 19 members, 133 participants and a team of highly qualified
legal advisors over the past year, which included over 100 calls or meetings, 2
public consultations and more than 4,000 email messages. It represents a
carefully crafted balance between key requirements, specific legal advice, and
significant compromises by all who participated and includes diligent attention
to the input received through the Public Comment proceedings. The final
proposal has received the consensus support of the CWG-Stewardship with no
objections or minority statements recorded for Chartering Organization
consideration.
As noted in the CWG-Stewardship proposal
itself, the proposal is significantly dependent and expressly conditioned on
the implementation of ICANN-level accountability mechanisms proposed by the
Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability
(CCWG-Accountability). The co-chairs of the CWG-Stewardship and the
CCWG-Accountability have coordinated their efforts and the CWG-Stewardship is
confident that the CCWG-Accountability recommendations, if implemented as
expected, will meet the requirements that the CWG-Stewardship has previously
communicated to the CCWG. If any element of these ICANN level accountability
mechanisms is not implemented as contemplated by the CWG-Stewardship proposal,
this proposal will require revision.
We also note that there are certain
implementation elements that will require further dialogue in the near future,
including with the other operational communities, and these have been marked as
such in the final proposal. Two specific issues are particularly important to highlight.
One is the finalization of the service level expectations (SLEs), where the
proposal includes a set of agreed principles between the CWG and IANA, but these
remain to be finalized in the form of a mutually agreed set of SLEs. A detailed
plan for this finalisation is being worked on and it is our view that this
detail, whilst vitally important, does not impact on the substance of the
proposal put to you for approval. The second issue entails the location of
intellectual property rights and this needs further discussion with the other
respondents to the ICG RFP and ICANN.
As per the CWG-Stewardship’s Charter we now seek your approval to submit this final proposal to the ICG and ask you to consider this approval in accordance with your respective SO or AC rules and procedures by 25 June 2015 to meet the overall timing requirements which would allow the transition to proceed, noting that final approval is conditional on the approval of the CCWG-Accountability Work Stream 1 recommendations.
We will make ourselves, together with or other key
contributors, available to you at the ICANN 53 meeting in Buenos Aires in order
to answer any questions you may have and to explain any details of the
proposal. For your information, further background documents as well as the slides,
recordings and transcripts of recent webinars explain the details of the final
proposal are available here: https://community.icann.org/x/sJc0Aw.
Should you have any further questions please do not
hesitate to contact us.
Lise Fuhr & Jonathan Robinson
Co-Chairs, CWG-Stewardship