At a Glance
The ALAC has made extraordinary efforts to enhance At-Large members' understanding of and engagement in the public comment on the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) 2nd Draft Report. The At-Large Ad-Hoc Working Group on IANA Transition and ICANN Accountability met twice a week during this period to discuss the Draft Report in detail. ALAC members in the CCWG-Accountability presented during Regional At-Large Organizations' monthly meetings to solicit regional views. Two community-wide briefings were also held, with the second one focusing on the ALAC Statement on the Draft Report. As a result of this extensive and in-depth consultation, the ALAC Statement went through a number of iterations, making sure that Internet end-users' voices and concerns are heard in this critical process of transiting the stewardship of the IANA functions and enhancing ICANN's accountability mechanism for the future of an independent, globalized ICANN.
Recent Developments
- The ALAC is generally supportive of the overall proposal. Although the ALAC preference was to have less "enforceability" and a lighter-weight proposal than preferred by some other groups in ICANN, the ALAC believes that the overall direction now being taken is acceptable.
- That being said, the ALAC supports the concerns expressed in Sébastien Bachollet's minority statement that the resultant complexity and multi-tiered control may make it overly difficult or impossible for ICANN to evolve if and when necessary. This complexity and the lack of detail in many parts of the proposal also raise the concern that we may not be able to complete the proposal in the time required.
- It was for this reason that the ALAC suggested that the CCWG consider a Community Mechanism as a Single Designator model thereby decreasing the number of "moving parts" in the proposal and increasing the possibility that the proposal could be completed on time. Further, the high thresholds set to ensure difficulty in over-riding the Board may also allow certain parts of the community to have an effective veto over change that is in the public interest, a particularly worrisome issue.
- For the reasons outlined above, the ALAC also looks very favourably on the new proposal made by the Board at the 02 September 2015 CCWG-Board meeting. This is addressed in more detail at the end of ALAC statement. In particular, the ALAC believes that by reverting to the written specification of Work Stream 1 in the CCWG Charter, focusing on the issues that are mandatory to effect the IANA transition, we may have a more manageable task to accomplish facilitating the IANA transition.
- The ALAC noted that further details and an evaluation from the CCWG legal counsel is needed. Pending those, the ALAC believes that the new CCWG proposal must be fully evaluated and cautiously offers its support for the concept of a simplified and minimal set of changes prior to the IANA transition while improving ICANN's long-term accountability to the community.
- General support notwithstanding, the ALAC would like to express its concerns with the current proposal, both at a conceptual and at a detailed level. The ALAC also took the opportunity to comment on a number of options provided by the minority views and minority statements within the document. In many cases, the ALAC is of a single mind on issues. In other cases, the group is divided, and this statement will clearly identify those. Read the full Statement for details.