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Comment Period

Important Information Links

Open Date:

30 September 2011

Close Date:

19 December 2011

Time (UTC):

23:59

Originating Organization:

Community-Wide Geographic Regions Review Working Group

Purpose:

For the past two years a community-wide working group chartered by the ICANN Board has been working to (1) confirm the history, underlying principles and goals of the current geographic regions framework, (2) analyze how those goals and principles have been applied by the Board, Staff and community and (3) consulted with the community on how those principles and goals can be best maintained in the future.

This Draft Final Report reflects the penultimate step of that research and consultation effort.  The draft document outlines specific recommendations from the Working Group to the ICANN Board regarding how the present Geographic Regions Framework can be modified to ensure that the organizational principles of geographic and cultural diversity are honored and maintained. Those recommendations are based on thorough research, extensive community consultation and reflect the points of view of a wide range of the ICANN community.

Mindful of the potential implications even small changes to the framework could have on the wider community, the WG decided to make this draft document available to the community for review and comment before the WG formally publishes its Final Report.  The WG will closely review all submitted comments to determine if further modifications to the draft document are necessary.

Current Status:

The Working Group has reached a consensus on its recommendations, but given the extensive consultative nature of this effort and mindful of the potential implications even small changes to the framework could have on the wider community, the WG decided to make this draft document available to the community for review and comment before the WG formally publishes its Final Report.

Next Steps:

The Working Group will closely review all comments submitted in this proceeding and will determine whether to modify the recommendations in the Final Report. The Working expects to formally publish its Final Report early next year. At that time the various ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees will be asked to formally comment on the recommendations in the Final Report.

Staff Contact:

Robert Hoggarth

Email:

robert.hoggarth@icann.org

Copies of the Draft Final Report in all six UN languages can be found at the following links:

Introduction

This text has been taken from the Geographic Regions Review – Draft Final Report Public Comments Page

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Geographic diversity is a fundamental component of the ICANN organization.  The ICANN Bylaws (Article VI Section 5) currently define five geographic regions as Africa, North America, Latin America/Caribbean, Asia/Australia/Pacific and Europe.

The ICANN Geographic Regions were originally created to ensure regional diversity in the composition of the ICANN Board and were subsequently expanded in various ways to apply to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO).

For the past two years a community-wide working group chartered by the ICANN Board has been working to (1) confirm the history, underlying principles and goals of the current geographic regions framework, (2) analyze how those goals and principles have been applied by the Board, Staff and community and (3) consult with the community on how those principles and goals can be best maintained in the future.

This Draft Final Report reflects the penultimate step of that research and consultation effort.  The draft document outlines specific recommendations from the Working Group to the ICANN Board regarding how the present Geographic Regions Framework can be modified to ensure that the organizational principles of geographic and cultural diversity are honored and maintained. Those recommendations are based on thorough research, extensive community consultation and reflect the points of view of a wide range of the ICANN community.

Mindful of the potential implications even small changes to the framework could have on the wider community, the WG decided to make this draft document available to the community for review and comment before the WG formally publishes its Final Report.  The WG will closely review all submitted comments to determine if further modifications to the draft document are necessary.

This text has been taken from the Geographic Regions Review – Draft Final Report Public Comments Page

------

Historical Background Information

The ccNSO Council approved a resolution in 2007 recommending that the ICANN Board appoint a community-wide working group to further study and review the issues related to the definition of the ICANN Geographic Regions, to consult with all stakeholders and submit proposals to the Board to resolve the issues relating to the current definition of the ICANN Geographic Regions.

The rest of the community supported the concept of the working group and the Board authorized its formation at its December 2008 Meeting (see - http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-07nov08.htm#_Toc87682556).

The Board approved the charter of the working group at its public meeting in June 2009 (see -http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun09.htm#1.2).  Copies of the Charter, in all six UN languages, are set forth here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/geographic-regions/charter-26jun09-en.htm.

The Working Group produced two previous reports, including an Initial Report in which the Working Group (1) identified the various applications and functions to which “ICANN Geographic Regions” are currently applied by existing ICANN structures; (2) documented other regionally identified processes and structures used within ICANN but not defined in the Bylaws; and (3) detailed the “issues” that it thought should be covered during its subsequent investigations.

The Working Group also produced an Interim Report that focused on general principles, specific considerations and some of the critical issues that it intended to address in its Final Report document. It (1) offered a review of the underlying history, objectives and general principles of ICANN’s Geographic Regions Framework; (2) raised a number of fundamental strategic questions for further community consideration; and (3) expanded on a number of specific issues identified in the Initial Report that were likely to be addressed in the Final Report.

Draft ALAC Statement on the Geographic Regions Review

Click here to download a PDF for the statement below

The ICANN Geographic Regions review is of great importance for At-Large because all its organization and its work are based on the 5 ICANN regions (composition of ALAC, distribution of RALOs, allocation of ALSes, etc.).

That is why since the Working Group initial report, ALAC expressed its great interest in always considering the main reason of the introduction of the geographic regions concept in ICANN, which was to ensure geographical diversity in the Board composition.

Also, ALAC strongly believes that we should always seek and support broad and informed participation reflecting the geographic, cultural and linguistic diversity at all levels of policy development and decision making in ICANN as stated in the ICANN Bylaws.

So, ALAC thinks that any geographic regions review should aim at enhancing the so called diversity    for a better international representation.

It is because any Geographic regions framework is made for a specific purpose that there is no international standard one: ITU uses several frameworks according to the nature of the structure that will use it (for example, ITU Radio-communication has a specific geographic regions system that is used for the frequency (and orbital position) allocation, which is different from the one used for the ITU council for the country representation).

That’s said, ALAC finds that the proposed review does not enhance the diversity and wouldn’t ensure more international representation.

The RIRs model was built on technical considerations having nothing to do with the diversity. It couldn’t be the right model for ICANN. If the actual framework is not perfect, the one proposed is not better for the following reasons:

  • It doesn’t satisfy the request for which the review was initiated.
  • It removes countries from their original regions to which they belong to a different region, far from their lands, with very different language and culture, and a far different level of Internet penetration (Example: Yemen from Asia to Europe)
  • The Asian Arab countries, Iran and Turkey will have almost no chance since they will be competing with prestigious European countries with very high level competences.
  • It creates political tensions since it removes the Islas Malvinas (Falkland island) from Europe to Latin America and Caribbean region.  

The draft final report says that the current framework has created a large number of anomalies without detailing or even mentioning them. We do believe that the proposed one would create more and worse problems at the representation level, as well as at the political one. It will not fulfill the main requirement of diversity for which the geographic regions were created in ICANN.

ALAC would advise that:

  • the current geographic regions framework be maintained
  • any country should be allowed to request for a change from its current region
  • the request for change should bring le country to a region closer to its land

Finally, we can conclude that the review will be a positive one if it reinforces the objective for which the geographic regions were implemented in ICANN. It is clear that the proposal of the working group final report doesn’t bring a better diversity, and thus failed in achieving its goal. ALAC thinks that it is of extreme importance that the review of the geographic regions be done for the benefit of a good international representation, taking into account the interest of all parties.     

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