CCWG Accountability Co-chairs submission to the CWG

[Mathieu Weill <mathieu.weill@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear CWG-Stewardship members and participants, Dear Lise, Dear Jonathan,

This submission is in response to your group's 2nd draft proposal, open 
for public comment on 22 April 2015. We submit these comments in our 
capacities of co-chairs of the cross community working group 
Accountability (CCWG-Accountability), based on the proposed 
accountability enhancements recently published by our group 
(https://www.icann.org/public-comments/ccwg-accountability-draft-proposal-2015-05-04-en), 
and open to public comment.
First, we would like to underline the quality of the ongoing 
coordination between co-chairs of our respective groups that has been 
taking place since the launch of our group. Each of our groups has been 
updated regularly of progress made as well as issues faced, and the 
interdependency and interrelation between our works have led to key 
correspondence being exchanges on a regular basis to formalize it. As 
CCWG Accountability, co-chairs, we were provided with the opportunity to 
speak to the CWG Stewardship on two occasions, and you also introduced 
the key elements of your 2nd draft proposal to the CCWG Accountability.
As outlined in your public comment announcement "the CWG-Stewardship's 
proposal has dependencies on and is expressly conditioned upon the 
CCWG-Accountability process." Overall, it is our understanding that the 
CCWG Accountability initial proposals meet the CWG Stewardship 
expectations. We would like to stress that, within our group's 
deliberations, the ability to meet these requirements have been rather 
uncontroversial.
Our comments will focus on the specific requirements that you outline :

    * Ability for the community to have more rights regarding the 
development and consideration of the ICANN budget;
The CCWG Accountability initial proposals address this requirement 
directly in Section 5.2, which introduces a new power for the community 
to "consider strategic & operating plans and budgets after they are 
approved by the Board (but before they come into effect) and reject them 
based on perceived inconsistency with the purpose, Mission and role set 
out in ICANN’s Articles and Bylaws, the global public interest, the 
needs of ICANN stakeholders, financial stability or other matters of 
concern to the community."
Due to the proposed creation of the Post Transition IANA organization, 
the CWG will need to develop a proposed process for the IANA-specific 
budget review. It could be made a component of the bigger review. The 
CCWG Accountability is availaiblefor further coordination between the 
two groups on that aspect.
    * Empowering the multistakeholder community to have certain rights 
with respect to the ICANN Board, including the ICANN Board's oversight 
of the IANA operations, specifically, the ability to appoint and remove 
members of the ICANN Board, and to recall the entire Board;
The CCWG Accountability initial proposals introduce new powers for the 
community, which include the ability to remove individual Directors 
(section 5.5) or recall the entire Board (section 5.6). These proposals 
would address the CWG Stewardship requirement.
    * The IANA Function Review, created to conduct periodic and special 
reviews of the IANA Functions, should be incorporated into the ICANN bylaws;
The CCWG Accountability proposes to incorporate the review system 
defined in the Affirmation of Commitments into Icann's Bylaws, including 
the ability to start new reviews (section 6.2, page 60) . Based on your 
group's proposal, the CCWG introduced a recommendation to create a new 
review, based on the requirements you set forth.
We have noted that a Separation review is also being discussed within 
the CWG. This could also be addressed by the CCWG Accountability. 
However, since it is still in process, it is not explicitly referred to 
at this stage. The CWG Stewardship might wish to provide additional 
details through the CCWG accountability public comment, which ends on 
June 3rd.
    * The CSC, created to monitor the performance of the IANA Functions 
and escalate non-remediated issues to the ccNSO and GNSO, should be 
incorporated into the ICANN bylaws.
Section 1.4, on page 12 of the CCWG Accountability interim proposals, 
acknowledges the intention of the CWG Stewardship to create a Customer 
Standing Committee. The CCWG Accountability did not at this point 
consider specific Bylaw changes related to the CSC. It would however not 
contradict any of the CCWG Accountability proposal. It might therefore 
be more appropriate if this recommendation was drafted and specified 
directly as one of the CWG Stewardship recommendation.
    * As such, any appeal mechanism developed by the 
CCWG-Accountability should not cover ccTLD delegation / re-delegation 
issues as these are expected to be developed by the ccTLD community 
through the appropriate processes.”
When addressing enhancements to review and appeal mechanisms (both in 
sections 4.1 - IRP and 4.2 Reconsideration process), the CCWG 
Accountability initial proposals  state that "as requested by the 
CWG-Stewardship, decisions regarding ccTLD delegations or revocations 
would be excluded from standing, until relevant appeal mechanisms have 
been developed by the ccTLD community, in coordination with other 
interested parties."
    * All of the foregoing mechanisms are to be provided for in the 
ICANN bylaws as "fundamental bylaws" requiring community ascent in order 
for amendment.
The CCWG Accountability initial proposals describe the scope of the 
"fundamental bylaws" in section 3.2.4. It is proposed that the "Reviews 
that are part of the CWG-Stewardship’s work – the IANA Function Review 
and any others they may require, as well as the creation of a Customer 
Standing Committee" would be considered Fundamental Bylaws. As such, any 
change of such Bylaws would require prior approval by the community.
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize our deep appreciation of the 
outstanding work the CWG Stewardship has conducted and our confidence 
that our respective groups' interdependence will be resolved to the 
satisfaction of stakeholder needs and expectations. We remain committed 
to closely coordinating on any further evolution of your requirements 
based on this 2nd round of public comment.
Best regards,
Thomas Rickert, Leon Felipe Sanchez, Mathieu Weill
Co-chairs, CCWG Accountability