On 24 July 2018, the ALAC unanimously voted to re-appoint Yrjö Länsipuro to serve as the ALAC Liaison to the GAC between the end of the 2018 AGM to the end of the 2019 AGM.
Yrjö Länsipuro was re-appointed by the ALAC to serve as the ALAC Liaison to the GAC between the end of the 2017 AGM to the end of the 2018 AGM.
On 24 June 2016, the ALAC appointed Yrjö Länsipuro to serve as the ALAC Liaison to the GAC for the interim period until the end of ICANN57. Yrjö is the first ALAC Liaison to the GAC.
Yrjö was previously a GAC member representing Finland, and a member of the ICANN President's Strategy Committee and has been active in At-Large since 2009. He is currently a delegate to the Nominating Committee
ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN66, Montreal, 5 November, 2019
Continuing a practice that started at ICANN56 (Helsinki, June 2016), the ALAC/At-Large and the GAC had a joint meeting at ICANN66 in Montreal 5 November, 2019.
The agenda covered topics of joint interest that have been discussed at many previous meetings: capacity building, EPDP and SubPro. Willingness to move forward from “comparing notes” to more concrete cooperation could be sensed from both sides.
Under AOB, a suggestion was made to develop contacts and cooperation between At Large elements and relevant governmental entities, represented on the GAC, also on country level.
Capacity building
Joanna Kulesza, Co-chair ALAC Capacity Building Working Group confirmed the readiness to cooperate with the GAC on capacity building by having At-Large members participate in the capacity building pre-events of the GAC in Cancun and Kuala Lumpur. Details will be worked on intersessionally.
There is interest in the GAC to learn about the capacity building, practices and working methods of At-Large. Joanna replied to the question by GAC Vice-Chair Luisa Paez by pointing to ICANN Learn, to online resources developed by At-Large and to the At Large Policy Platform that is under development. She also welcomed the Information Transparency Initiative that will make information about ICANN better organized and more accessible.
EPDP
Hadia El-Miniawi, one of the two ALAC representatives in the EPDP, presented an overview of points of common interest between the ALAC and the GAC with regard to the expedited process for gTLD registration data: first and foremost, complying with GDPR and other relevant data protection laws; having a standardized system for access/disclosure automation; accuracy of registration data; and distinction between natural and legal persons. On the last point, a study is going to be launched, something that arose from EPDP meeting in Montreal.
(Reference is also made to the joint GAC – ALAC statement on Phase I of the EPDP at ICANN64, Kobe, 13 March 2019, and subsequent discussions on a follow-up to it concerning Phase II)
SubPro
Justine Chew, the ALAC Liaison for SubPro, listed SubPro issues that are important to At-Large and that ALAC has commented on in the process, such as global public interest, safeguards including verified TLD’s and registration restrictions for highly regulated sectors, CCT review recommendations, closed generics, new appeals mechanism, applicant support, community priority evaluation and possible enabling of change requests. She confirmed that ALAC is open to working with the GAC in a way that GAC is comfortable with to see if there is common ground on some of these topics or topics that the GAC wants to put forward.
Replying to Justine, Jorge Cancio (Switzerland) noted that already at the previous ICANN meeting (ICANN65, Marrakech, June 2019) the GAC and ALAC had more or less agreed to try to find synergies between the ALAC and GAC SubPro groups. He hoped this can still be done, and pointed out that at least some in the GAC had called for some urgency in tackling the issues that are crystallizing in the PDP working group. He said he hoped that the GAC could share with ALAC its scorecard of SubPro issues which covers 95% of the issues that Justine listed. “So it would be a shame if we didn’t work together on this because our resources, yours and ours, are very limited”, he said,
Luisa Paez, the Chair of the GAC Focus Group on Subsequent Rounds of New TLD’s, agreed that the GAC and the ALAC have a lot of synergies, and that an intersessional call between the GAC Focal Group and ALAC will be planned. She also welcomed sharing the scorecard or parts of it, after it has been updated and reviewed by GAC members.
Contacts and cooperation “on the ground”
Under AOB, Ricardo Holmquist (ALAC-LAC) suggested preparing a joint GAC-ALAC statement encouraging At Large elements and relevant governmental entities to talk to each other at country level. This would facilitate capacity building, help developing policies related to ICANN and building a better internet in our countries, he said.
Next steps
Moving on to next steps, Ana Neves, the GAC Liaison to ALAC, noted the difficulties of getting the policy dialogue going between bodies that represent governments, on one hand, and consumers and users, on the other. Nevertheless, she insisted on a more active and energized partnership to get the most out of it.
Yrjö Länsipuro, the ALAC Liaison to the GAC, said he realized the ALAC and GAC are “very different animals” but they nevertheless represent the same people whom the GAC calls citizens and ALAC calls individual end users of the Internet. He also thanked Luisa in inviting At Large participation in the GAC Focus Group.
Concluding the meeting, both Chairs, Manal Ismail and Maureen Hillyard, agreed that the GAC and the ALAC should get intersessional cooperation up and running, looking forward to having active engagement between now and the next ICANN meeting in Cancun.
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Two other events with ALAC-GAC engagement at ICANN66 need to be noted:
1) At the joint ALAC-GAC-NPOC Communications and Capacity Building Session (2 November), Bob Hoggarth, Vice President, Policy Development & GAC Relations, explained the special capacity building needs of the GAC, taking into account the high turnover rate of GAC representatives that 178 governments send to meetings. Over 12 months, the committee has seen 99 new participants, and 62 have departed.
2) Joanna Kulesza and Yrjö Länsipuro participated at the session of the GAC Human Rights and International Law working group (6 November) which discussed the new draft template for human rights impact assessments.
Joint ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN65, Marrakech
June 26, 2019
There was a joint ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN65 on Wednesday, June 26. Due to scheduling constraints, only 30 minutes had been reserved for it, so the agenda was limited to three topics only.
- EPDP
As a follow-up to the ALAC-GAC joint statement[1] on EPDP, issued at ICANN64 in Kobe, Hadia Elminawi reviewed developments on issues of common concern for both ALAC and GAC, including the distinction between natural and legal persons, accuracy of the data in relation to the purposes they are collected for, and the necessity of including the field for technical contact. In the joint statement, the two bodies had also called for exploring the need of having an ICANN purpose that addresses related DNS research requirements pertaining to the security and stability of the internet. Hadia noted that this Purpose 2 had not been adopted by the Board, so that it needs to be rephrased so the it reflects ICANN’s public interest role.
From the GAC side, Ashley Heineman (US) observed that GAC and ALAC seem to be aligned on many issues pertaining to the EPDP. On Purpose 2, we still need to wait for there to be some sort of Board – GNSO Council consultation, but perhaps leading up to that and afterward, GAC and ALAC can regroup together and maybe chart a path forward on how best to handle that particular purpose.
- Cooperation on capacity building
Joanna Kulesza reported from the joint small group meeting on Monday on how to facilitate especially newcomers to both ALAC and GAC in adapting in the complex ICANN environment. The objective is to have joint capacity building events both at and between ICANN meetings. In addition, all At-Large capacity building events and online resources are open and GAC members are welcome to use them. In the ensuing discussion, Kavouss Arasteh (Iran) expressed support for this cooperation and suggested leveraging also resources of other international organizations.
- Intersessional dialogue on policy matters
GAC Liaison to the ALAC Ana Neves (Portugal) presented the idea of expanding the intersessional cooperation of the two bodies to policy matters, in particular to discussing the possible new gTLD round. She proposed a small joint group of 4-5 people from each side to start the work. Jorge Cancio (Switzerland) suggested that instead of setting up a joint group, a newly constituted GAC focal group on new gTLD’s could be used for the purpose. The Chair of that group, Luisa Paez (Canada) confirmed that GAC is open for a dialogue with ALAC on new gTLD, something she sees as important. The focus group is going to discuss the modalities after the summer holiday period and come back with its invitation. (On our side, we should identify a few people who would like to participate in this dialogue.)
At the conclusion of the meeting, the ALAC Chair Maureen Hilyard welcomed the willingness of the GAC for a policy dialogue, noting that we have a lot of commonalities and that ALAC is very willing to participate in discussions with GAC, on terms they find appropriate, and that GAC members are always welcome to the capacity building sessions organized by ALAC. The GAC Chair Manal Ismail agreed that multiple working groups would not be needed and that the GAC focus group will invite ALAC colleagues to join.
[1] https://atlarge.icann.org/advice_statements/13255
June 2018
The GAC appointed Ana Neves as the first GAC Liaison to the ALAC during ICANN 62.
ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN 62; annotated agenda
23 August, 2016
On 19 August, 2016, there was a call where the Chairs of the GAC and the ALAC, Thomas Schneider and Alan Greenberg, together with the interim ALAC liaison to the GAC, Yrjö Länsipuro, and staff of both advisory committee, discussed the rationale and objectives of the newly created ALAC-GAC Liaison post.
It was agreed that the purpose is to keep the ALAC and the GAC – the two bodies of ICANN community that share a concern for public interest – mutually informed on a general level about what they are doing and planning to do, and to explore issues where the two committees could find enough common ground for cooperation. In the short run, expectations are modest, and the main objective is to build solid foundations for cooperation, whenever there's a need for it.
A call with participation from both sides will be held in September to discuss issues of mutual interest. The ALAC Liaison volunteered to present the first draft for the agenda of the call, and welcomes ALAC input to it.
Yrjö Länsipuro
