[ALAC] Call for Volunteers: GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group

[Alan Greenberg]

<http://gnso.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-18jul13-en.htm>http://gnso.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-18jul13-en.htm

Call for Volunteers: GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group

In brief
The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council seeks 
volunteers to serve on a Working Team that has been tasked to address 
a number of issues that have been raised in the context of the recent 
discussions on policy & implementation that affect the GNSO.

What This Working Group Will Do
The Working Group is tasked to provide the GNSO Council with a set of 
recommendations on:

1.      A set of principles that would underpin any GNSO policy and 
implementation related discussions, taking into account existing GNSO 
Operating Procedures.
2.      A process for developing gTLD policy, perhaps in the form of 
"Policy Guidance", including criteria for when it would be 
appropriate to use such a process (for developing policy other than 
"Consensus Policy") instead of a GNSO Policy Development Process;
3.      A framework for implementation related discussions associated 
with GNSO Policy Recommendations;
4.      Criteria to be used to determine when an action should be 
addressed by a policy process and when it should be considered 
implementation, and;
5.      Further guidance on how GNSO Implementation Review Teams, as 
defined in the PDP Manual, are expected to function and operate.

For further details on the charter, please see 
<http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/policy-implementation-charter-04jul13-en.pdf>http://gnso.icann.org/en/drafts/policy-implementation-charter-04jul13-en.pdf. 


How This Working Group Will Work
ICANN Working Groups use transparent, open processes. The meetings of 
this WG will be recorded, and the recordings will be available to the 
public. The mailing list for the Working Group will be archived 
publicly. Working Group members are expected to submit Statements of 
Interest (SOI). The group will collaborate using a public workspace. 
The Working Group is expected to follow the 
<http://gnso.icann.org/council/annex-1-gnso-wg-guidelines-08apr11-en.pdf>GNSO 
Working Group Guidelines.

How to Join
The GNSO Council invites all interested parties to put forward their 
names so they can be added to the WG mailing list. The WG will be 
open to anyone interested to join. Community members who wish to be 
invited to join the group should contact the 
<mailto:gnso.secretariat at icann.org?subject=Application%20to%20Join%20Policy%20and%20Implementation%20WG>GNSO 
secretariat (<mailto:gnso.secretariat at icann.org>gnso.secretariat at icann.org).

Background
Mainly as a result of discussions stemming from implementation 
related issues of the new gTLD program, there is increased focus on 
which topics call for policy and which call for implementation work, 
including which processes should be used, at what time and how 
diverging opinions should be acted upon. In order to facilitate these 
discussions, ICANN Staff developed a draft framework for community 
discussion that identifies a number of steps and criteria that might 
facilitate dealing with similar questions in the future. The paper 
identifies a number of questions that the community may want to 
consider further in this context, as well as a couple of suggested 
improvements that could be considered in the short term. While 
developing a bright-line rule as to what is policy or implementation 
may not be possible, the hope is that by developing clear processes 
and identifying clear roles and responsibilities for the different 
stakeholders, it will become easier to deal with these issues going 
forward and allow for broad participation and involvement. Following 
several discussions by the GNSO Council on this topic, the GNSO 
Council has now formed a Working Group which has been tasked to 
provide concrete recommendations on how to address some of these 
issues from a GNSO perspective.