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NOTE: THE TEXT BELOW IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, NOT YET MEANT FOR DISCUSSION.

Proposed text for an ALAC statement on the CWG Report

The At-Large Community urges the Board to fully implement the recommendations of the Cross-Constituency Working Group on issues of Morality and Public Order (MAPO) related to the creation of new To-Level Domains. This Working Group, nicknamed "Rec6" after the GNSO recommendation upon which MAPO objections were formed, has accomplished an unprecedented level of consensus across representatives of all of ICANN's primary stakeholder groups. The work of this committee was the very example of the bottom-up policy process that ICANN claims to be its foundation.

At-Large has always been in general against the very principle of gTLD string objections based on content, though we see the CWG recommendations as an effective compromise that addresses most of our worst concerns about abuse of MAPO-based objections. Specifically, we wish to emphasize, as strongly as possible, our support for the CWG's consensus calls to:

• Completely eliminate the role and function of Dispute Resolution Service Provider
• Limit objection criteria to specific principles of international law and treaty
• Eliminate national law as a sole criteria for objection
• Resolve disputes of this nature early in the application process
• Require a super-majority of the Board to reject string applications based on these criteria
• Channel government objections through a slightly modified version of the existing community objection process
• Enable the GAC and ALAC to submit objections through the Independent Objector
• Uphold a gTLD creation process that encourages "the true diversity of ideas, cultures and views on the Internet"

These recommendations, in fact, closely resemble the MAPO-related comments on the gTLD application process that were presented to the Board and senior staff at the conclusion of the At-Large Summit.

In addition, we wish to explicitly call attention to an issue that received substantail support but not consensus: that a super-majority of the Board should be required to reject string applications based on these criteria.

If any of the above recommendations are seen to be "inconsistent with existing process", that is a clear indication that the existing process contains fundamental flaws that have been identified and must be addressed. ICANN's community has spoken in an  unprecedented and unambiguous manner, and the At-Large Advisory Committee is proud of our effort to help such divergent views together to produce clear and workable policy.

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Reference Documents:

Cross Community Working Group report on GNSO gTLD Recommendation 6 :

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