AT-LARGE GATEWAY
At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)
ALAC Liaisons and Representatives
At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development
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The ALAC statement on the CWG Report
Third version, modified during the community consultation conference call and reflecting minor edit suggestions by Alan Greenberg (Oct 22, 16:00 UTC) This text was formally submitted to the public comments process collecting community feedback on the Rec6 WG report. It has also been submitted to the ALAC for formal endorsement as advice to the ICANN Board.
The At-Large Community urges the Board to fully implement the consensus recommendations of the Rec6 CWG. The work of this working group was the very example of the multi-stakeholder, bottom-up process that ICANN claims to be its foundation. The Board must encourage the ongoing work of the Rec6 CWG. We are confident that, given some reasonable extra time, outstanding issues that have not yet reached consensus may be resolved.
At-Large has always been generally against the very principle of gTLD string objections based on "morality and public order". However, we see the Rec6 CWG recommendations as an effective way to attend to the most pressing needs while addressing our concerns about the existing implementation. We wholeheartedly concur with the recommendations in the report that achieved Full Consensus or Consensus. Specifically, we wish to emphasize, as strongly as possible, our support for the CWG's consensus calls to:
- Completely eliminate the term "morality and public order";
- Replace the existing resolution dispute mechanism with processes defined by recommendations 3 and 4 from the CWG Report;
- Limit objection criteria to specific principles of international law and treaty;
- Deny national law as a sole criteria for objections based on these criteria;
- Resolve disputes of this nature early in the application process;
- Require individual government objections to be made either through the Community Objections Process or through one of the ALAC and the GAC;
- 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".
We are also committed to achieving consensus on those issues in which no resolution has yet been made, and encourage the continuation of the CWG in these efforts. We believe that additional time in cross-community discussions would resolve them. We strongly urge support of recommendation of 14.1, to create a "Rec6 Community Implementation Support Team" (Rec6 CIST) to provide input to ICANN Implementation Staff as they further refine implementation details.
It is rewarding and noteworthy that these recommendations, in the main, closely resemble statements on the gTLD application process that were part of the Declaration of the At-Large Summit held during the ICANN meeting of March 2009, which stated:
We emphatically call for the complete abolition of the class of objections based on morality and public order. We assert that ICANN has no business being in (or delegating) the role of comparing relative morality and conflicting human rights.
Abolishing the morality and public order class of objection will eliminate the risk to ICANN of bearing responsibility for delegating morality judgment to an inadequate DSRP.
Certain extreme forms of objectionable strings may be addressed through minor modifications to the ''Community'' class of objection. While we fully appreciate the motivation behind this class of objection, we cannot envision any application of it that will result in fewer problems than its abolition.
In addition, we wish to explicitly call attention to an issue that received substantial support but not consensus: that a super-majority of the Board should be required to reject gTLD 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 :
Reference Documents:
Cross Community Working Group report on GNSO gTLD Recommendation 6 :
Wiki Markup
Public comment announcement:
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Response from Alan Greenberg - sent 9 October 2010
I haven't seen any other comments on this, so I will kick things off. The comments range from minor corrections to what I believe are substantive ones. (Staff note: Alan's comments are in bold italics)
Alan
At 08/10/2010 02:55 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
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based on "Morality and Public Order". The At-Large objection to it was a significant component of the gTLD commentary that was developed at the At-Large Summit, and opposition to the "MAPO objection" has remained ALAC policy to this day.
If we use the "MAPO" term in any resultant document, it should be defined on first occurrence.
has remained ALAC policy to this day.
Apparently our distaste for this was shared by ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC),
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"The Board acknowledges receipt of the Rec6CWG report. This is a difficult issue, and the work of the community in developing these recommendations is appreciated. The Board has discussed this important issue for the past three years.
The Board agrees that ultimate responsibility for the new gTLD program rests with the Board.
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There was another part of the gTLD motion that is very relevant - 2.7
2.7 Role of the Board
The Board intends to approve a standard process for staff to proceed to contract execution and delegation on applications for new gTLDs where certain parameters are met.
Examples of such parameters might include: (1) the application criteria were met, (2) no material exceptions to the form agreement terms, and (3) an independent confirmation that the process was followed.
The Board reserves the right under exceptional circumstances to individually consider an application for a new gTLD to determine whether approval would be in the best interest of the Internet community, for example, as a result of the use of an ICANN accountability mechanism. The Board approves the inclusion of a broad waiver and limitation of liability in the application terms and conditions.
This motion gives staff the responsibility to approve applications is certain (presumably common and not very controversial) cases, but even in such cases, the Board reserves the right to intervene. It is not clear whether it was deliberate or an oversight, but the motion does not give staff the right to refuse an application. If this motion stands, and is interpreted as I have, this means that all refusals must come from the Board - pretty much what many on the CWG were asking for.
I think that we need to explicitly support this notion so that if the Board later changes it, we have a history trail to point back to.
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