Original link: https://www.icann.org/news/blog/icann-stays-busy-while-ntia-reviews-transition-proposals

 

By Akram Atallah & Theresa Swinehart

There is no such thing as idle time in the ICANN community. Now that the IANA Stewardship Transition proposals have been submitted to the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), ICANN staff and the community are focused on a handful of efforts related to the transition, including pre-planning implementation, and continuing education and awareness-building.

We collaborate with the community weekly, and often daily, to make sure we are aligned on our plans to implement the proposals. Given the high number of ongoing projects, providing clear and consistent updates has been one of ICANN’s highest priorities. Resources from all meetings and calls are postedpublicly, as are a new series of implementation planning updates. We encourage anyone interested to visit the website, and explore the sub-pages for an overview, status updates and relevant links for each project.

Over the last week, a remarkable amount of work by the three legal teams went into finalizing the amended ICANN Bylaws. All of the input received during the public comment period was carefully reviewed. Many of the suggested changes to the Bylaws that would better demonstrate the recommendations in the transition proposals were incorporated, however comments aimed at changing recommendations were not incorporated. All three legal teams affirmed that the revised Bylaws are consistent with the transition proposals. For more information on how each comment was assessed,ICANN published a detailed analysis and response to each comment here.

Last Friday, the ICANN Board passed resolutions to adopt the new ICANN Bylaws, which were later transmitted to NTIA as the final piece of the transition package of proposals. The Board also approved two important community agreements for signing – the Regional Internet Registries Service Level Agreement and the Internet Engineering Task Force Memorandum of Understanding Supplemental Agreement – which will become effective upon completion of the transition. The Board also approved posting of the Draft Restated Articles of Incorporation for a 40-day public comment period. The adoption of these resolutions represents a major milestone for our implementation planning.

To build awareness of the transition, many ICANN community, staff and Board members have participated in and contributed to dozens of regional events, media briefings, roundtables and informational webinars since Marrakech. Our participation in these events is primarily aimed at providing details and context around the community’s proposals, answering questions, sharing developments about the status of the U.S. Government’s review process and giving updates on our implementation planning efforts. We encourage all of our stakeholders to join these informative discussions. Please visit ICANN’s events calendar to find upcoming events in your region.

On Capitol Hill, the U.S. House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing last March during which stakeholders testified in support of the transition. The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing in May during which stakeholders indicated their support for the consensus proposals and warned of the consequences of delaying or postponing the transition. During this hearing, letters of support from industry and civil society groups within the community were entered into the hearing record. Thank you to the stakeholders who worked so hard to participate in the hearings. We are grateful for your commitment to the multistakeholder model. 

The community has completed perhaps the most important part of this process by developing the transition proposals and new Bylaws, but our work is not yet over. Thank you to everyone involved for your ongoing participation, engagement and support throughout the transition process.

- Akram & Theresa