Proposed ICANN Bylaws Amendments—GNSO Policy & Implementation Recommendations

Purpose: Per its resolution of 28 July 2015 (see https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2015-07-28-en#1.c), the ICANN Board has directed that proposed changes to the ICANN Bylaws be posted for public comment prior to ICANN Board consideration.

Current Status: During its meeting on 24 June 2015, the GNSO Council unanimously adopted the recommendations of the GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group (see: http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/policy-implementation-recommendations-01jun15-en.pdf), which was tasked to address a number of questions as they relate to GNSO policy and implementation. Among others, these recommendations include three proposed new GNSO processes, two of which—the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) and the GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP)—require changes to the ICANN Bylaws¹ subject to ICANN Board approval.

Next Steps: The ICANN Board will review the input received in response to the public comment proceeding as part of its consideration of the GNSO Policy & Implementation recommendations.

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¹These proposed changes to the ICANN Bylaws are accompanied by a GGP and EPDP Manual, which can be found in Annex D and F of the GNSO Policy & Implementation Final Report (see: http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/policy-implementation-recommendations-01jun15-en.pdf) and would be incorporated into the GNSO Operating Procedures following adoption of the proposed ICANN Bylaws changes by the ICANN Board.

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During its meeting on 24 June 2015, the GNSO Council unanimously adopted the recommendations of the GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group (see http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/policy-implementation-recommendations-01jun15-en.pdf) which was tasked to address a number of questions as they relate to GNSO policy and implementation. Among others, these recommendations include three proposed new GNSO processes, two of which—the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) and the GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP)—require changes to the ICANN Bylaws². These new processes are intended to provide the GNSO Council with more flexibility to address policy issues through formal processes to be used if specific criteria are met:

• GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) – to be used in those instances for which the GNSO Council intends to provide guidance that is required to be considered by the ICANN Board, but which is not expected to result in new contractual obligations for contracted parties. Guidance developed through a GGP means advice that has a binding force on the ICANN Board to consider the guidance and it can only be rejected by a vote of more than two-thirds (2/3) of the Board, if the Board determines that such guidance is not in the best interests of the ICANN community or ICANN. It is expected that this would typically involve clarification of, or advice on existing gTLD policy recommendations. This could be in response to a specific request from the ICANN Board but could also be at the initiative of the GNSO Council to an issue that has been identified. For example, such a process could have been used in relation to the request from the ICANN Board to provide input on the .brand registry agreement, specification 13.
• GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process – to be used in those instances in which the GNSO Council intends to develop recommendations that would result in new contractual obligations for contracted parties that meet the criteria for "consensus policies"³ as well as the qualifying criteria to initiate an expedited PDP. Those qualifying criteria are (1) to address a narrowly defined policy issue that was identified and scoped after either the adoption of a GNSO policy recommendation by the ICANN Board or the implementation of such an adopted recommendation; or (2) to provide new or additional policy recommendations on a specific policy issue that had been substantially scoped previously, such that extensive, pertinent background information already exists, e.g. (a) in an Issue Report for a possible policy development process that was not initiated;  (b) as part of a previous PDP that was not completed; or (c) through other projects such as a GGP.

Per its resolution of 28 July 2015 (see https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2015-07-28-en#1.c), the ICANN Board has directed that proposed changes to the ICANN Bylaws [PDF, 656 KB] be posted for public comment prior to ICANN Board consideration.

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²These proposed changes to the ICANN Bylaws are accompanied by a GGP and EPDP Manual, which can be found in Annex D and F of the GNSO Policy & Implementation Final Report (see: http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/policy-implementation-recommendations-01jun15-en.pdf) and would be incorporated into the GNSO Operating Procedures following adoption of the proposed ICANN Bylaws changes by the ICANN Board.

³For further information about "consensus policies," please see http://gnso.icann.org/en/basics/consensus-policy/about.

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Mainly as a result of discussions stemming from implementation related issues of the new generic Top-Level Doman (gTLD) program, there has been an increased focus on which topics call for policy and which call for implementation work, including which processes should be used, at what time and how issues which are the subject of diverging opinions during the implementation process should be acted upon. Following several discussions, including the publication of a staff discussion paper and a community session during the ICANN46, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council decided in July 2013 to form a Working Group (WG) which was tasked to develop a set of recommendations on:

• A set of principles to underpin future GNSO policy and implementation related discussions, taking into account existing GNSO Operating Procedures.
• A process for developing gTLD policy, possibly in the form of "Policy Guidance," including criteria for when it would be appropriate to use such a process (for developing policy other than "Consensus Policy") instead of a GNSO Policy Development Process;
• A framework for implementation related discussions associated with GNSO policy recommendations;
• Criteria to be used to determine when an action should be addressed by a policy process and when it should be considered implementation; and
• Further guidance on how GNSO Implementation Review Teams, as defined in the PDP Manual, are expected to function and operate.

The WG issued an Initial Report for public comment in January 2015. Following review of all public comments received, the WG completed its deliberations and submitted its Final Report containing all its consensus recommendations to the GNSO Council on 2 June 2015. The Final Report includes a set of Policy and Implementation Principles and Requirements as well as a set of Implementation Review Team (IRT) Principles and Guidelines developed by the WG to guide future GNSO policy and implementation work. In addition, three new processes were recommended by the WG:

• A GNSO Input Process (through which the GNSO can provide feedback on non-gTLD policy matters),
• A GNSO Guidance Process (through which the GNSO can provide guidance on adopted gTLD policies), and
• An Expedited GNSO Policy Development Process (to supplement the existing GNSO PDP for suitably limited issues not resulting in the creation of binding Consensus Policies on ICANN’s Contracted Parties).

The WG also recommended that, where use of the processes is currently discretionary, the GNSO Council should mandate the use of them for future adopted gTLD policies, except in exceptional circumstances. The GNSO Council unanimously adopted all the recommendations during its meeting on 24 June 2015.

• Proposed Changes to the ICANN Bylaws [PDF, 656 KB]
• ICANN Board Resolution
• GNSO Policy & Implementation Final Report [PDF, 1.53 MB]

• Report