[bc-gnso] ANNOUNCEMENT: Public Comment: Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process

[Marilyn Cade <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear BC Members: 
One of the GNSO improvements projects has been focused on developing a Policy 
Development Process (PDP).The Proposed Final Report is posted below for BC 
Members to consider. The comment period closes on April 1. 
This is a complex and detailed document but deserves attention from the BC 
members. We will live with the process of the PDP, and the processes within 
Council chartered Working Groups related to policy development in perpetuity.  
Although the Council did a selfassessment and called for many improvements 
several years ago, and those were not implemented, but overtaken by a Board 
ledGNSO Improvements Approach that has stretched out for multiple years.  
The input into the PDP document has not been able to command fully 
representative participation and input, partly as a result of the length of the 
working process.  Thus, those of us who tried hard to work within the process 
will need to be clear that there may be some areas that really must be improved 
during the comment process. The key areas of change are outlined by staff 
below. The Chair, Jeff Neuman, has done a terrific job of chairing, and the 
ICANN staff have been invaluable in the work on the Proposed new GNSO Policy 
Development Process. Marika is really expert on the details, as is Jeff. 
Marilyn CadeBC 
Chair===============================================================================
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-3-21feb11-en.htm
 Public Comment: Proposed New GNSO Policy Development Process
 
 PDP-WT presents its Proposed Final Report
 
 21 February 2011
 
 As part of GNSO Improvements, the Policy Development Process (PDP) Work Team 
(WT) was tasked to develop recommendations for a new GNSO policy development 
process. ICANN's policies have wide-ranging impact on how domain names are 
handled in the gTLD environment, so the method of developing the policies 
matters. Following review of the comments received on its Initial Report and 
continued deliberations on remaining issues, the PDP-WT now publishes its 
Proposed Final Report which contains amongst others forty-eight (48) 
recommendations, an outline of the proposed new Annex A as well as a supporting 
document that is envisioned to be included in the GNSO Council Operating 
Procedures as the PDP Manual. Before finalizing its report and submitting it to 
the GNSO Council for its consideration, the Working Group is asking for your 
input. The public comment forum will be open until 1 April 2011.
 
 For those interested, the PDP-WT will present its report and the proposed new 
GNSO Policy Development Process at the ICANN meeting in San Francisco (see 
http://svsf40.icann.org/sched-overview for further details).
 Key Recommendations
 
 * Some of the key recommendations of the new PDP include:
 o Recommending the use of a standardized "Request for an Issue Report 
Template" (recommendation 4)
 o The introduction of a "Preliminary Issues Report" which shall be published 
for public comment prior to the creation of a Final Issues Report to be acted 
upon by the GNSO Council (recommendations 10 & 11).
 o A Requirement that each PDP Working Group operate under a Charter 
(recommendation 19)
 o Dialogue between the GNSO Council and an Advisory Committee in the event 
that an the GNSO Council decides not to initiate a PDP following an Issues 
Report requested by such Advisory Committee (recommendation 18)
 o Changing the existing Bylaws requiring a mandatory public comment period 
upon initiation of a PDP to optional at the discretion of the PDP Working Group 
(recommendation 22)
 o Clarification of 'in scope of ICANN policy process or the GNSO' 
(recommendation 23)
 o Changing the timeframes of public comment periods including (i) a required 
public comment period of no less than 30 days on a PDP Working Group's Initial 
Report and (ii) a minimum of 21 days for any non-required public comment 
periods the PDP WG might choose to initiate at its discretion (recommendation 
28)
 o Maintaining the existing requirement of PDP Working Groups producing both an 
Initial Report and Final Report, but giving PDP Working Groups the discretion 
to produce additional outputs (recommendation 34)
 o A recommendation allowing for the termination of a PDP prior to delivery of 
the Final Report (recommendation 37)
o Guidance to the GNSO Council on the treatment of PDP WG recommendations 
(recommendation 39)
o New procedures on the delivery of recommendations to the Board including a 
requirement that all reports presented to the Board are reviewed by either the 
PDP Working Group or the GNSO Council and made publicly available 
(recommendation 40)
 o The use of Implementation Review Teams (recommendation 43)
 o A redefinition of 'GNSO Supermajority vote' to include the original meaning 
of GNSO Supermajority i.e. 2/3 of Council members of each house so a GNSO 
Supermajority vote would be 75% of one House and a majority of the other house 
or 2/3 of Council members of each house (recommendation 48)
 
For a complete overview of all the recommendations, please see Section 2 of the 
Proposed Final Report.
 Background

 On 26 June 2008 the ICANN Board approved a set of recommendations designed to 
improve the effectiveness of the GNSO, including its policy activities, 
structure, operations, and communications. The following pertains to the 
PDP-WT's mission:
 
 Revising the PDP: The Policy Development Process (PDP) needs to be revised to 
make it more effective and responsive to ICANN's needs. It should be brought 
in-line with the time and effort actually required to develop policy and made 
consistent with ICANN's existing contracts (including, but not limited to, 
clarifying the appropriate scope of GNSO "consensus policy" development). While 
the procedure for developing "consensus policies" will need to continue to be 
established by the Bylaws as long as required by ICANN's contracts, the GNSO 
Council and Staff should propose new PDP rules for the Board's consideration 
and approval that contain more flexibility. The new rules should emphasize the 
importance of the preparation that must be done before launch of a working 
group or other activity, such as public discussion, fact-finding, and expert 
research in order to properly define the scope, objective, and schedule for a 
specific policy development goal and the development of metr!
 ics for measuring success.
 
 The charter of the PDP-WT is to develop and document a revised GNSO Policy 
Development Process that achieves the goals established by the ICANN Board. The 
PDP-WT, with staff assistance, will need to determine what changes to the 
bylaws will be required. New processes will need to be documented properly to 
ensure that the bylaws (and any related operational rules or procedures) are 
updated accurately. 
The revised PDP, after review and approval by the PPSC, GNSO Council, and ICANN 
Board, would replace the current PDP defined in Annex A of the ICANN bylaws.

 Further Information
 
 PDP-WT Proposed Final Report - 
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-wt-proposed-final-report-21feb11-en.pdf [PDF, 
1.21 MB]
 PDP-WT Proposed Final Report - Executive Summary Only - 
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-wt-executive-summary-proposed-final-report-21feb11-en.pdf
 [PDF, 580 KB]
 PDP-WT Proposed Final Report - without annexes - 
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-wt-proposed-final-report-no-annexes-21feb11-en.pdf
 [PDF, 998 KB]
 PDP-WT Initial Report - 
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/pdp-initial-report-31may10-en.pdf [PDF, 2.36 MB]
 PDP-WT Workspace - https://st.icann.org/icann-ppsc/index.cgi?pdp_team
 GNSO Improvements - http://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/
 Deadline and how to submit comments
 
 Comments are welcome via e-mail to gnso-pdp-final-report@xxxxxxxxx until 1 
April 2011.
 Access to the public comment forum from which comments can be posted can be 
found at 
http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-201104-en.htm#gnso-pdp-final-report
 An archive of all comments received will be publicly posted at 
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-pdp-final-report/.
 
 Staff responsible: Marika Konings