Process to Retire Non-Policy Recommendations

The Process for Retirement of Non-Policy Recommendations is a nine step process to retire a Board-approved, non-policy recommendation in exceptional cases and according to specific criteria. The process was endorsed by the ICANN’s Board Organizational Effectiveness Committee (OEC) in December 2023 and shared with the Board in January 2024.

Background information

To implement Board approved Third Accountability and Transparency Review (ATRT3) Recommendation 5, ICANN org put together a for the retirement of community-developed, Board-approved, non-policy recommendations to be used in exceptional cases and according to specific criteria.

Non-policy recommendations refer to community recommendations developed outside of a Policy Development Process, such as Specific Reviews or Cross-Community Working Groups.

ICANN org walked SO/AC Leadership through the process on 29 September 2023, and on 13 October 2023 shared a note to confirm the deadline and mechanism for submitting feedback on the proposed process. Responses received included:

The process was refined to address the areas for improvement identified by the GNSO Council, and the ccNSO Council and its Guideline Review Committee Council:

• A new step 2 was added to allow for the issue paper to be sent to SO/AC leaders, along with a request to send any feedback from their communities. This earlier community engagement will allow ICANN org to gauge initial reaction, and will serve to better inform the relevant grouping(s) of the ICANN Board on whether to proceed with the next step, which entails submitting the paper to the community prioritization group.

• The process was also modified to enable the ICANN community to request that ICANN org initiates the retirement process.