Hi Wolf-Ulrich and all, Thank you very the very helpful historic material. With respect to issues where action or inaction by the GNSO Council could adversely affect the GNSO’s ability to perform its role as a Decisional Participant in the Empowered Community, the following text was included in the new section Chapter 5.0: GNSO as a Decisional Participant in the Empowered Community. It may be that further instances could be identified that might require additional changes to the GNSO Operating Procedures. To the extent that these instances might be identified staff will bring them to the DT’s attention. Best, Julie 5.3. Waiver for petitions In order to meet the timelines outlined in Annex D<https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#annexD>, for example, articles 2 and 3 of the ICANN Bylaws concerning petitions, the GNSO Council may waive the deadlines and timing requirements outlined in these GNSO Operating Procedures as well as the requirements for voting outside of a meeting, as recommended unanimously by the GNSO Chair and Council Vice-Chairs. From: Gnso-bylaws-dt <gnso-bylaws-dt-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of "Wolf-Ulrich.Knoben" <wolf-ulrich.knoben@t-online.de> Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 5:51 PM To: "gnso-bylaws-dt@icann.org" <gnso-bylaws-dt@icann.org> Subject: [Gnso-bylaws-dt] follow-up All, following the call just concluded I found some "historic" material wrt Deferral of Motions On 12 December 2012 the SCI provided the following report to the GNSO Council: “The SCI was asked to consider the current GNSO Council informal practice whereby a party may request the deferral of a motion to a later date in those situations where a formal process for a deferral is not specifically provided (for example, certain deferrals are foreseen as part of the GNSO PDP. The SCI discussed this practice and whether there was a need to create a procedure to formalize this informal practice. After much debate, the SCI concluded that the current practice of allowing for the deferral of motions was done as a matter of courtesy at the discretion of the Chair of the GNSO Council. For this reason, the SCI concluded that there was no need to create a formal procedure at this time. However, the SCI felt that it was necessary to explicitly state that there is no rule that the Chair must always exercise his or her discretion in the affirmative or the negative. Given that the current informal practice is at the discretion of the Chair, the Chair can exercise that same discretion in considering whether to grant or deny any request and can also exercise his or her discretion when determining how to handle any specific situation that may occur with regard to this informal practice.” After 5 - 6 years almost nobody shall remember this. Maybe a note in the procedures could help, and extra-work could be avoided. In addition, potential "Blocking of motions" (as Steve was asking) is regulated by the procedures: 3.3.2 Submission of Reports and Motions Reports and motions should be submitted to the GNSO Council for inclusion on the agenda as soon as possible, but no later than 23h59 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on the day, 10 calendar days before the GNSO Council meeting. If a motion is submitted after the Submission Deadline, the GNSO Council shall consider the motion if the following requirements are met: a. The motion (including any report or other supporting documentation) is submitted to the GNSO Council at least 24 hours in advance of the GNSO Council meeting; b. The motion is accompanied by a request to consider the motion despite submission after the Submission Deadline (a “Request for Consideration”); c. A vote on the Request for Consideration shall be called as the first order of business for the agenda item that deals with the motion. The vote on the Request for Consideration must be unanimous (i.e., all Councilors or their proxies must vote and all votes cast must be in favor of considering the motion at such GNSO Council meeting) for the motion to be considered at such GNSO Council meeting. If these requirements are not met, the motion shall not be considered submitted for the next Council meeting. For the avoidance of doubt, if the motion is proposed again for a subsequent Council meeting, it shall not be considered a resubmitted motion under the rules for Resubmission of a Motion in these Operating Procedures. Best regards Wolf-Ulrich