Hi Manal, All,

See my comments below.

Karen/Antonietta, based on the notes from our call and the below would you please put together, as soon as possible, a straw proposal on deferral in a google doc for us to work on? 

We can have another call if need be but editing the google doc may be sufficient. If possible I’d like us to have something stable by our plenary call next Tuesday.


Cheers,

CD

Chris Disspain
Senior Advisor on Policy and Internet Governance 


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On 3 May 2026, at 10:04, Manal Ismail via Small-group-to-elaborate-on-review-timing <small-group-to-elaborate-on-review-timing@icann.org> wrote:

Dear All ..
 

Sincere apologies for not being able to participate actively to last call, and many thanks to Chris, Becky, David and Pat for a very interesting discussion ..

I have listened to the recording and would like to provide the following comments:

  • I like the idea of capping deferrals through increasing voting thresholds for each deferral (similar to what we agreed on limiting simultaneous reviews through available resources), noting what you have also agreed on the importance of providing a Rationale, providing a new start date/window, and deferring by enough time to allow resolution of the reason for deferral and avoid the need for multiple deferrals ..

Yes I think we have begun to coalesce around this idea. I think deferral should be recommended by the Standing Scoping Committee (SSC) (after the topic choice and criteria testing stage) and then agreed by the community.

My suggestion is a maximum deferral of 18 months and a maximum number of deferrals of two for ATR with the voting threshold being five SO/ACs for the first deferral and six for the second. 

  • For ATR, should we also propose that the deferral(s) should be less than a full 5-year cycle? i.e. should we make sure we don’t skip a full 5-year cycle without conducting an ATR, as mandated by the bylaws?

See my comment above.

  • I’m not sure I understand the deferral of the Structural Reviews .. Can the community decide that we don’t need one, i.e. skip a full cycle? If yes, when will be the next time to check, after another 15 years? Or is the structural review also mandatory (with flexibility for limited delay similar to ATR), even if it will end up conducting only phase one, the External Landscape Assessment?

On the structural review I think the process of having the SSC recommend and the community agree works. BUT I think the recommendation can only come AFTER phase 1 (external landscape assessment) has been completed. Again, I suggest limits on timing and the number of deferrals.

  • On conditions for deferring ATR, I believe all conditions boil down to the following:
    • Limited Resources (money, staff, community, …)
    • Relevant unfinished/ongoing work (past recommendations, relevant ongoing discussions, RoR, …)
    • Community consent threshold (gradually increasing thresholds for each deferral of the same review, as Becky suggested)

Anything else?


I’m not sure we need to be THAT specific. ‘After considering the topics presented, prioritising them and considering them against the criteria, the SSC recommends deferring the ATR for XX months because…’ with a clear rationale provided to the community. 


  • For On demand, I believe it’s more of Prioritization rather than Deferral, with an additional aspect of the topic qualifying for a review (subject to the criteria we already discussed: not a PDP topic, narrow scope, not a second bite at the apple, …)

I don’t think deferral applies to on-demand. There is either a demand for a review or not and that demand is judged by the ‘vote’ of the community.

  • On how often should ICANN prod the community regarding Special Topics, I agree on every 5 years (different 5 than ATR), but I’m not sure why assigning the same time to CCT and SSR? 

I think for ease of ongoing logistics agreeing a Special Topics common prod time is sensible. I suggest every 3 years. Remember that it’s only a prod. The community will still need to actually WANT a review.

  • That said, I, Personally, tend to agree with Becky on better having the special topics under bucket A, which would still not exclude them from popping up individually under On-Demand? So they become permanent questions within any ATR (confirming them being of special importance to the community), So every ATR should answer “Do we need an On-Demand Review on any aspects of security, stability or new gTLDs? which can still be requested directly by the community under On-Demand .. This would also take care of the different 5-year prod interval discussed by the subgroup (since, if need is confirmed, it would start later than the ATR) ..

I think this over-complicates the matter. Yes, SSR topics (or any other Special Topics) can be recommended by SSC as ATR topics for review. Yes SSR topics can be proposed by 2 or more SO/ACS as On-Demand topics. Yes, an ATR could recommend that an SSR topic be the subject of an On-Demand Review. I think that is enough without complicating the matter by having ‘permanent questions’ for Review Teams which defeats the purpose of having the review scoped before the team is decided.

  • If this is agreed, this would reduce things under the On-Demand Review Bucket, to cover only narrow-scoped topics requested by the community (which could still be SSR or CCT aspects), the Board, an ATR or a Structural Review  .. Any thoughts?

See above.

Looking forward to discussing further within the subgroup and working with Chris on next steps ..

Kind Regards

--Manal

 
From: Yvette Guigneaux via Small-group-to-elaborate-on-review-timing <small-group-to-elaborate-on-review-timing@icann.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2026 12:00 AM
To: small-group-to-elaborate-on-review-timing@icann.org
Subject: [External] [Small-group-to-elaborate-on-review-timing] Review of Reviews/CCG - Small group to elaborate on review timing | Wednesday, 29 April 2026 | 1400 UTC | 1 hour
 
Hi all – good day. Just to ensure all received the information for tomorrow’s call for the small group to elaborate on review timing | Wednesday, 29 April 2026 | 1400 UTC |
1 hour.
 
Attendees:
Members: Theresa Swinehart, Chris Disspain, Avri Doria, Manal Ismail, Pat Kane
Observers: Becky Burr, Justine Chew, David McAuley
& ICANN Support Staff
 
Agenda:
  • Define principles for review having to happen every so often while ensuring sufficient flexibility 
  • Define conditions for deferring the accountability and transparency review 
  • Define recommended intervals for seeking an interest in running a review on one of the special topics
 
Participation details are below:
Zoom Meeting Link:
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Meeting ID: 956 6310 7235
Passcode: x^$T36X3%2
 
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Yvette Guigneaux
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