Dear Working Group members, Please see the email message below, which staff is sending on behalf of Susan Kawaguchi, the GNSO Council liaison to our PDP Working Group. Dear IGO-INGO Curative Rights Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group members, I write in my role as GNSO Council liaison to this Working Group (WG) to follow up on the WG meeting held last week and to clarify misunderstandings that may have arisen from that call. The intention in providing a report of the WG member consultation process was to develop a record of the views expressed in that process. Ultimately, a PDP WG is required to report its findings to the GNSO Council. The member consultation process was intended to provide a workable pathway to reaching this point, and the record of those views intended to inform the WG’s final report to the GNSO Council. I understand from last week’s call that members of the group are willing and keen to work together to reach a final document, and I fully support that happening. While the member consultation process was initiated to address a Section 3.7 appeal under the GNSO WG Guidelines in which concerns were raised about the appropriate means of designating WG consensus, the recommendations made by me and the GNSO Chair go beyond the Section 3.7 appeal, because the input received during the consultation process raised other issues going beyond the scope of the appeal. Many of these other issues dovetailed with the GNSO Council’s current initiative to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of PDPs (a process we call “PDP 3.0”). One of the priorities raised by the Council in its Strategic Planning Session in January 2018 and by PDP leaders and the community in a workshop held at ICANN61 was for Council to take a more active role in supporting and managing PDP timelines. In its Strategic Planning Session, the GNSO Council identified completion of this PDP’s work by mid-year to be a top priority based on the broader GNSO PDP workload and each PDP’s timeline and milestones. Ultimately, Heather’s and my recommendation that the WG wind up its work takes that input from the GNSO Council into account. Our recommendation can be boiled down to suggesting that the WG develop its final output for presentation to the GNSO Council; if consensus cannot be reached on any particular points, the various options raised should be identified, as these are an important record of the ideas proposed but not agreed upon. Recording this information indeed was our intention in conducting the WG member consultation process. To clarify, the intention of the WG member consultation process was never to guarantee or influence a particular substantive outcome, or even to guarantee that consensus would be reached on any/all points under discussion; it was merely to provide an alternative approach by which members could voice their views on the points under discussion and capture these for inclusion in the record and to gain an understanding of each WG member’s point of view. It is the role of the WG, not the liaison or the Council, to drive the effort to a final document for presentation to Council. To that end, we suggested that if the group cannot achieve consensus on any particular points, then the model of the Cross-Country Working Group for the Use of Country & Territory Names as TLDs (CWG-UCTN) Final Report would be instructive (that group’s final report contains three recommendations on which consensus was reached, and a fourth recommendation presented in option form with support recorded for each option). I remain very willing to support and assist the WG in developing a final report, and I understand from last week’s call that other members of the WG are likewise willing. I suggest therefore that we form a small drafting team with a view to developing a final report by 14 May, in time for submission and consideration by the Council during the 24 May GNSO Council meeting. Kind regards, Susan (GNSO Council liaison to the IGO-INGO Curative Rights PDP WG)