Issue 35 Template

Hypothesis of problem

The AOC in recommendation 9.1 requires an ongoing assessment of various aspects of ICANN transparency.  At the current time no mechanism exists for such an ongoing assessment beyond the periodic ATRT reviews.    

 Background research undertaken

While ATRT1 did not make any specific recommendations on a maner in which continual assesment could be done, previous consultants reports, contracted by ICANN, did include suggestions

From the One World Trust 2007 Report

Transparency refers to the provision of accessible and timely information to stakeholders. Reporting and disclosure systems and processes that enable information sharing are central to an accountable organisation. Examples include an information disclosure policy, audited accounts and annual reports. Transparency mechanisms need to be based on the principle of presumption of disclosure, i.e. all information will be made available in the absence of a narrowly defined set of conditions for non-disclosure.

31. To ensure compliance with any organisational policy, it is important that there is high level oversight and leadership. Without this, implementation will only ever be piecemeal. To ensure implementation of the information disclosure within ICANN therefore, responsibility for overseeing the policy should be assigned to a senior manager

32. Supporting this, a set of indicators should be developed to monitor the implementation of the policy, and an annual review should be undertaken which identifies how ICANN is complying with the policy, where there are problems, and the steps that are to going be taken to address these (see recommendation 5.1 in section 8.) Recommendation 1.3: ICANN should consider assigning responsibility for overseeing organisation-wide compliance with the Information Disclosure Policy to a publicly named senior manager; and making publicly available an annual review that documents compliance with the policy.

100. While ICANN has three mechanisms for investigating complaints from members of the ICANN community, the organisation does not have a policy or system in place that provides staff with channels through which they can raise complaints in confidentiality and without fear of retaliation. Having such a policy (often referred to as a whistleblower policy) is good practice among global organisations. A whistleblower policy that provides such protections serves as an important means of ensuring accountability to staff as well as preventing fraudulent behaviour, misconduct and corruption within an organisation.

 Recommendation 4.2: ICANN should consider implementing processes that act as deterrents to abuses of power and misconduct which would protect staff who might want to raise such instances. Specifically, ICANN should consider developing a whistleblower policy that enables staff to raise concerns in a confidential manner and without fear of retaliation; and developing appropriate systems to foster compliance (see Appendix 5 for examples of good practice).

134. While the Ombudsman, Reconsideration Committee and the Independent Review Panel provide complaints based approaches to compliance, to generate greater trust among stakeholder, ICANN needs to take a more proactive approach. 

135. To address this issue, ICANN should consider a regular independent audit of their compliance with accountability and transparency commitments. Alternatively, it could develop a permanent compliance function to emphasize prevention by identifying shortcomings as they emerge and before they become systemic problems. In either case, a regular report on compliance should be produced and publicly disseminated.

136. For either approaches, independence should also be ensured. Global organisations such as the International Finance Corporation have addressed this issue by locating their audit/compliance function in the office of the Ombudsman. Recommendation 5.1: ICANN should consider having an independent report produced, perhaps annually, that would measure the organisation’s compliance with transparency and accountability commitments made in its By-Laws.

From the Berkman Report to ATRT

Berkman in Section 2.4 of their report, recommends that ICANN follow the recommendations of the One World Trust in carrying out a yearly transparency audit that would be published  as part of the annual review.  

 2.4 Transparency Audit

 (a) Issues

The lack of a comprehensive audit of ICANN’s information activities makes it difficult to assess its practices across active, passive, and participatory transparency.

(b) Observations

The 2007 One World Trust review describes an ICANN initiative “to conduct an annual audit of standards of accountability and transparency, including an audit of the commitments made in these Management Operating Principles . . . by an external party” with the results of the audit “published in the Annual Report.”xxxv The last annual report does not contain such an audit.

(c) Discussion

ICANN currently lacks an up-to-date, publicly available transparency audit. This makes it difficult to make substantive assessments of ICANN’s practices as they relate to active, passive, and participatory transparency. The lack of empirical material (e.g., on the time delays in the publication of documents) currently forces reviewers to look for conceptual, structural, and procedural deficiencies in order to identify if, where, and how there are inconsistencies between guiding policies and practices. A comprehensive audit, in contrast, would allow for periodic, facts-based, internal and external reviewing and benchmarking; ICANN could greatly benefit from this when further improving its information policies.

Such a transparency audit needs to be governed by clear policies and processes, which set forth the categories of information pertinent to such an audit, among other things. Following an earlier recommendation by the One World Trust review, the transparency audit should be published in the Annual Report. In addition, the Berkman team suggests that the underlying data be released as part of the Dashboard/ICANN Performance Metrics.xxxvi Accountability and Transparency at ICANN: An Independent Review {99}

(d) Recommendation

Create and implement policies and processes for conducting and communicating regular transparency audits.

Summary of ICANN input

Summary of community input via the public comment process and face to face meetings

Summary of other relevant research

(Insert comments related to metrics to be suggested by the One world report on metric that is being done)

 Relevant ICANN bylaws

• Article III with relation to the absence of requirements for a yearly transparency report

• Article V Sections 2,3 Ombudsman charter and Operations

Relevant ICANN published policies

Relevant ICANN published procedures

ATRT2 analysis

The ATRT has determined that in order to meet the requirements of the AOC, ongoing and continuous focus on Transparency that is independent of ICANN Sr. Staff authority in regards to the information collected and published.  This function needs to be similar to the role of the Ombudsman, and can be forded into the function of the ombudsman.

Draft recommendation

• ICANN should include a yearly transparency report as part of its yearly report.  this report goes beyond any specific implementation notes of previous ATRT recommendations, and should cover a large range of Transparency efforts and metrics.
• Issues to be covered include: I.a. 
  
  • Reports on the usage of the Documentary Information disclosure Policy (DIDP)
  • Statistical reporting on the Board information and report disclosure, this should include measures of:
    
    • Percentage of Board Book and other information that is released to the general public
    • Percentage of released information that is redacted
    • Number and nature of issues that Board determined should be treated at either:
      
      • Under chatham House Rule
      • Completely confidential
  • ICANN Transparency report needs to include a section on Employee whistleblowing activity including metrics on:
    
    • Reports submitted
    • Reports verified as contaiing issues requiring action
    • Reports that resulted in change to ICANN practices
  • Include a yearly report of metric that are derived from the transparency recommendations made in AOC recommendations.  this metrics report should include:
    
    • Analysis of the continued relevance and usefulness of existing metrics, including considerations on whether activities are being geared toward the metrics (aka, teaching to the test) without contributing toward the goal of genuine transparency
    • Recommendations for new metrics
• This report could be created under the supervision of  (the ICANN Ombudsman.) external auditor
  
  • This would require a change to By-laws on the Ombudsman scope
• (The transparency function requires an additional hire, within the Ombudsman office, to work with the various AOC review groups to provide continuity of the transparency function across all AOC groups.)

 

Public Comment on Draft Recommendations

 

Final recommendation