ALAC Requests Comments on Draft Advisory to Board on GNSO Restructuring

Working Group on GNSO Restructuring Concludes Work - ALAC Working on Related Advisory for ICANN Board ­ - Comments by Community Sought

On 26 June 2008 the ICANN Board of Directors endorsed the recommendations of the Board Governance Committee's (BGC) GNSO Review Working Group, with the exception of the BGC's recommendation regarding GNSO Council restructuring.

The Board asked the GNSO to convene a small working group on on GNSO Council Restructuring ­consisting of one representative from the current NomCom appointees to the GNSO Council, one member from each GNSO constituency and one member from each liaison-appointing advisory committee (including, of course, the ALAC).

The Board directed that the group:

"should reach consensus and submit a consensus recommendation on Council restructuring by no later than 25 July 2008 for consideration by the ICANN Board as soon as possible."

(see ICANN Board Resolution 2008.06.26.13, http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun08.htm#_Toc76113182 for the complete text.)

The ALAC Liaison to the GNSO, Alan Greenberg, was nominated to represent ALAC on the working group. An ad-hoc supporting committee of the ALAC was formed in order to help Alan.

The members of the ad-hoc committee are: Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Sebastien Bachollet, Vanda Scartezini, and Izumi Aizu.

The working group on GNSO council restructuring began its work on 4 July 2008 and has deliberated exhaustively during seven conference call meetings and via email from that date, through midnight on 25 July and into the next
day in an effort to develop a consensus recommendation for Board consideration. The ad-hoc supporting committee of the ALAC worked closely with Alan during this period.

A copy of the Report of the Working Group on GNSO Restructuring can be found here.

Appended to it are statements from each of the members on behalf of the community they represent, including a statement from Alan Greenberg onbehalf of the ALAC. This statement was developed in concert with the ad-hoc
ALAC working group supporting Alan's work.

Next Steps

Since the Board of Directors of ICANN is to begin its discussions on the output of the working group at its meeting on Thursday 31st July, and the ALAC Executive Committee believes that it is important that the Board have a clear statement from the ALAC on these issues, it is the intention of the Chair of ALAC to ask the ALAC to approve a Statement to be transmitted tothe Board as an official Advisory Committee statement.

To this end, a draft Statement, drawn heavily from the statement of Alan on behalf of the ALAC annexed to the report will be available on or before 1200 UTC 30th July 2008. As soon as it is available a vote will commence, running as required for seven days, to allow ALAC Members to vote to approve, not approve, or abstain on the draft Statement.

In order to be prepared for the vote, ALAC Members are asked to carefully consider urgently:

• A Background Paper prepared by Alan Greenberg, describing in more detail the working group process.
• The report of the working group;
• The statement of Alan on behalf of the ALAC in the report above

The draft statement will be posted and linked to this announcement as soon as it is available. In the meantime, please use the Comments option on the page at https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?at_large_advisory_committee to ask questions or make comments.