May 2017 – SSAC Liaison Report
(as at 23 May 17)
1. SSAC MEETINGS. The SSAC has held one meeting on 11 May which I attended.
2. SSAC WORK PARTIES. I am currently serving on four SSAC Work Parties:
- 2017 SSAC Membership Committee – This Committee reviews SSAC members who are approaching the end of their 3-year appointments and assesses potential new members. There have been no meetings of this Committee in the last month.
- IDN Harmonization WP – I joined this Work Party belatedly after better understanding the scope of its work during ICANN58 in Copenhagen. This Work Party has already released SACs 084, 088 and 089 regarding the EPSRP process and is currently working on a report on emojis, which is currently in the “48-hour last call” prior to publication. I attended two meetings of this Work Party on 4 and18 May.
- ICANN59 Planning WP – This work party has had four meetings on 27 April and 4, 11 and 18 May. The SSAC Program for ICANN59 is well progressed with only
- SSAC Review WP – This Work Party has been recently established to manage the 5-yearly SSAC Organizational Review as mandated in the ICANN Bylaws. It has yet to meet.
3. SSAC REPORTS. There have been two SSAC Reports issued in the last month:
SAC093: SSAC Comments on the Draft Recommendations of the CCWG- Accountability-WS2 on SO/AC Accountability dated 18 May 2017
In summary, the SSAC:
- agrees that it would be beneficial to determine and implement those best practices which are applicable to SSAC’s structure and purpose
- does not believe it is appropriate to incorporate an implementation review into the scope of future ATRTs
- suggests that it would be more appropriate to incorporate such a review into the 5-yearly independent organizational reviews
- does not support the formal “Accountabillity Roundtable” as proposed
- suggests a more informal approach should be adopted, which involves the exchange of views, experiences and best practices during the course of regularly scheduled meetings between SO/AC chairs only
- agrees that the IRP should not be made applicable to activities of SO/AC/Groups.
SAC094: SSAC Response to the Request for Advice Relating to the 2012 New gTLD Round dated 22 May 2017
This Report reviews and highlights in detail the recommendations from past SSAC Reports which have relevance to the 2012 New gTLD Round
Both reports can be found on the SSAC Reports webpage.
4. SSAC REPRESENTATION ON CCWG ACCOUNTABILITY. I attended one CCWG Meeting on 26 April as well as all 3 meetings of the Diversity Sub-Group Meeting (on which I am a Participant) on 26 April, 4, 12 and 18 May. I have also spent some considerable effort during this period drafting SSAC responses to the Diversity Questionnaire, the Draft SO/AC Accountability Report (SAC093) and the Draft Framework of Interpretation for Human Rights (yet to be finalized and published).
