[bc-gnso] statement on ATRT

[Marilyn Cade <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marilyn Cade, Chair of BC

 

Appreciate that you have ensured the continuation
of the Public Forum, and also note with appreciation that you share our
awareness that ICANN nas many critical issues and activites. 

 

In general, the BC is pleased with the focused
attention on the new gTLDs in the specialized public forum on M and W, and in
the open approach taken in the Workign sessions between the Board and GAC, but
we also are very appreciative of this Public Forum to address the rest of the
critical breadth of other issues and topics. 

 

The AoC was welcomed by the BC, and we welcomed
the Review Team approach established for the four topical areas.  

We have previously thanked the ATRT members for
their hard work. 

 

It is very clear that the staff have also decided
a significant amount of work to the ongoing fulfillment of how the
implementation is going. 

 

The BC applauds the work of the ATRT and looks
forward to the implementation of the recommendations, as committed by the
Board. 

 

We have not focused in on the substantive detail
of the ATRT recommendations with comments, but have a very few thoughts;

 

We consider the AoC of critical importance to
ICANN’s success. It would b

eard to overemphasize how important this agreement
was upon tis signing, and continues to be as a commitment that was made and
needs to be fulfilled.

 

We took note of a statement during Monday’s
session and wish to reinforce our views on ensuring all necessary resources. 

 

In his opening remarks, the CEO said that
fulfilling ICANN's Affirmation responsibilities was "...subject
to receiving appropriate resources."

The BC advises the Board and the community that we
believe that the ATRT recommendations are expected by the community to be fully
implemented. If there are budget or resource constraints that are putting the
recommendations at risk, that should be identified immediately, and shared with
the Community.

 

In its report, the
ATRT asks the Board to provide a status report on all the recommendations at
the March 2011 ICANN meeting in San Francisco. 

                  

The Board should
also provide a more formal report at the June 2011 ICANN meeting in Amman
detailing:

1)         Which
recommendation(s) have been fully implemented; 

2)         The
status and schedule for implementing the remaining recommendations;

and

 3)         The
recommendations which the Board has concluded it cannot implement

including a detailed explanation as
to why the recommendation(s) cannot be implemented.

 

We apologize for not noting this issue earlier, but
it is of some concern to us that item 3 seems to indicate that the Board can
decide that recommednations cannot be implemented and after explaining why, no
further initiative would be undertaken to find a way to implement the
recommendation. It may be appropriate not to act on a recommendation if it is
indeed not possible to implement; on the other hand, the community may believe 
that
with adjustment, a recommendation could be met. 

 

Since the Report in June is actually the conclusion
of the ATRT process, this would indicate that it would be important to put the
Discussions on this topic up very early in the Singapore agenda and to make
sure that the more formal report is provided to the community well before the
Singapore meeting. 

 

 

This has been a busy
time for ICANN since Cartegena, but the ATRT recommendations are critical to
ICANN’s fulfilling the AoC itself. 

 

We also supported the ATRT request that
the Board provide a status report on all the recommendations at the March 2011
ICANN meeting in San Francisco.

 

We have not been able to identify the promised
Status Report on all the Recommendations. 

 

Resources issues/concerns:--