3. Recommendations re: Working Groups
3.4 Conclusions
Our recommendations and proposed action items on formalizing a working group structure for ICANN include:• Working Groups should become the foundation for consensus policy development by the GNSO Council. Such an approach tends to be a more constructive way of establishing agreement than task forces, where discussion can replicate constituency positions rather than explore common ground. There is value in enabling parties to become a part of the process from the beginning. This inclusiveness can have benefits in terms of being able to develop and then implement policies addressing complex or controversial issues. Proposed Action Item: The Board requests the Council to take step immediately to move to a working group model, as described above, for all future policy development work, and other aspects of its work as appropriate.
• The Council and Staff should work together to develop appropriate operating principles, rules and procedures for the establishment and conduct of GNSO Working Groups. An implementation team comprised of Staff, Council members and GNSO constituency representatives should be established for this purpose, and it should also be tasked with revising the policy development process (PDP). This effort should draw upon the broad and deep expertise within the ICANN community on how lessons learned in other organizations, including but not limited to the IETF, W3C and the RIRs, might benefit ICANN. These rules and procedures shouldconsider the following elements:o Working groups should be open to anyone interested in joining and offering their insights and expertise. At the same time, safeguards to prevent any single group from “capturing” a working group must be developed. The implementation team should define a proper balance that invites new stakeholders to participate but that keeps working groups to a manageable size for constructive discussion.
o Notices about the creation of working groups should be posted clearly and as broadly as possible, both inside and outside of the ICANN community, in different languages and as early as possible, to allow greater opportunity for broad participation. In addition, Staff and constituencies should undertake proactive outreach, including in languages other than English.
o A strong, experienced and respected Chair is essential. The Chair – and any Vice-Chair(s) – must play a neutral role by refraining from pushing a specific agenda, ensuring fair treatment for all legitimate views and guaranteeing objectivity in identifying areas of agreement. The Chair should have authority to enforce agreed rules against anyone trying to disrupt discussions, and be able to exclude people in certain cases, with the possibility of an appeal (perhaps to the Council).
o At the outset, the working group or the Council should set a minimum threshold for active support established before a decision can be considered to have been reached. This may involve balancing numeric and distributional components.
o Where such agreement is not possible, a group should strive to reach agreement on points where there is significant support and few abstentions. Support for the points should be well-documented and include the positions and reasoning of those who do not agree.
o Decisions where there is widespread apathy should be avoided. On the other hand, dissenters should not be able to stop a group's work simply by saying that they cannot live with a decision. Instead, they should propose an alternative that would be acceptable to them and could also meet the needs of other members of the working group. When the Chair believes that the working group has duly considered the legitimate concerns of dissenters as far as reasonably possible, the group can decide to record the alternate view(s) and move on to other issues.
o The author(s) of the working group report will play a crucial role in building consensus, and should be distinct from the Chair. The drafting group should ideally comprise a variety of voices, to help ensure that the outcome is constructive and broadly supported.
o There should be a procedure for appealing a decision of the Chair (perhaps to the Council) with respect to the proper application of the agreed rules.
o Anyone joining a working group after it has begun must review all documents and mailing list postings, and agree not to reopen previously decided questions.Members of working groups must disclose certain information on standardized Statement of Interest and Declaration of Interest forms, which will be available online for public review. Proposed Action Item: The Board tasks the Staff to work with the Council and GNSO constituencies to develop a set of working principles, rules and procedures for GNSO working groups, including but not limited to the points above, and to present those principles to the Board within six months. The Board recommends that an implementation team be established for this purpose, and it should also be tasked with developing the rules and procedures for working groups, as described above. Sufficient time must also be allotted to solicit and consider public comments on draft rules and procedures developed by this team.
• ICANN Staff must be ready to provide sufficient support to a working group. This should include the option of recruiting and compensating outside experts for assistance on particular areas of work, providing translation of relevant documents, and developing relevant training and development programs. Most important, the budget implications of additional resources for working groups should be factore into the planning cycle to the extent that has not already happened.
Proposed Action Item: The Board:(i) Tasks the Staff with preparing a report on the budget implications of moving to a working group model, including costs associated with using expert input and professional facilitators, any additional travel costs and translation and/or interpretation costs. The report should include an indication of how much funding might be available in the current fiscal year and in future years. This report should be presented to the Board within six months; and
(ii) Tasks the Staff to work with the Council to put in place, within six months, an initial package of training and development programs and other systems to create a group of skilled chairs and a pool of facilitators familiar with ICANN issues and able to assist with GNSO policy issues (see also Section 5.3, below). This initial package will be augmented to include training on the new working group model and PDP once they are developed by the implementation team and approved by the ICANN Board.
