To all SCI members and to Staff,

To be clear, I am certainly not against Avri delivering a report on SCI work in Singapore and will certainly try to participate remotely.   I think this report should note the following:

1.       In its call of January 20 and on the list thereafter, SCI considered the subjects of (1) friendly amendments, (2) effect of 10 day waiver rule on resubmission of motions, (3) review of WG Consensus  Guidelines, and (4) overall review of procedures and guidelines under the “periodic review” responsibility delineated in the Charter.

2.       We believed after our call on January 20 that consensus was obtained and did not schedule another call at that time.  It was thought we could simply “tweak” the draft letter to Council that was presented prior to the January 20 call.  There was no disagreement expressed on the call about the basic points to be covered in the letter.

3.       It later became apparent that Avri, who was unable to attend the January 20 call, disagreed with mentioning at least two of the suggested topics – 10 day waiver rule and review of WG Consensus Guidelines.  Amr also disagreed with the statement that SCI had not directly considered this issue.

4.       The Chair modified the letter to remove the two sources of objection listed in 3. and asked for further input.  Staff suggested further modifications which were sent to the list.  The Chair disagreed with staff’s modifications and the liaison mostly agreed with them but no other SCI members weighed in.   

5.       Only three SCI members responded positively to the invitation to another call for January 27 to resolve the issues. Thus, the call was cancelled and no consensus was reached on the letter to Council.

As Chair,  I would boil the outstanding substantive disagreement regarding the letter as expressed on the list down to two points:

1.       Although there was no specific disagreement expressly voiced by any SCI member during the January 20 call with respect to bringing up the topic of friendly amendments, staff recommended  that a straw poll be conducted to determine if this was really what SCI wanted to say given that Council had put this issue on hold.  In my view, Avri should simply ask Council whether they still feel this issue needs to be on hold or whether SCI can help address it (not increasing the workload of Council, but actually helping to reduce that workload.)

2.       Everyone on SCI agrees that with respect to “periodic review”, the results of the GNSO Review are quite relevant.  Staff apparently takes the position that SCI should do nothing until GNSO directs its “periodic review” work plan after seeing the final results of GNSO Review. The Council Liaison appears to agree with this approach.  The SCI Chair believes that after the meeting in Singapore, SCI should (a)review the results of the Westlake Report and schedule calls to begin work on  a clearly delineated proposed plan (with timelines) under the periodic review responsibility contained in the Charter and should not sit idle while GNSO reviews the final recommendations. 

3.       Thus, my proposal for the request for direction from Council to be made in the course of the delivery of Avri’s report is as follows:

(a)    under the “immediate review” responsibility in the Charter, should SCI study the “friendly amendments” issue that was put “on hold” by Council in its January 15 meeting or wait for further deliberations by Council on this issue? 

(b)   Should SCI members read the Westlake Report when it comes out and begin work on a proposed periodic review plan to be submitted to Council for approval or do nothing regarding a proposed plan for periodic review until further direction from Council? 

The SCI Chair observes that staff is quite appropriately concerned about the Council (and corresponding staff) workload, but respectfully suggests that the work to be done is on the part of SCI, not Council, and that SCI should not sit idle during the IANA transition since its work forms a positive aspect of ICANN accountability.

Thanks to all for their thoughts by reply to all.  Obviously if GNSO Council directs SCI to sit idle and do nothing pending the final recommendations from GNSO Review, that means we have nothing to do until further direction is received from Council.  We will count on Avri to tell us after the meeting in Singapore whether we have anything to do or not.

Anne

Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521.