Joint ALAC/GAC meeting at ICANN62 in Panama Cit

At ICANN62 in Panama  City, the joint ALAC-GAC meeting was held on Wednesday, June 27, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 AM in Salon 1-3 (GAC Room)  with the following agenda, agreed at the meeting of the ALAC and GAC leadership teams on May 30.

1. An introduction to the ALAC
2. GDPR (one month later)
3. Geographic Names (work track 5 matters)
4. The ICANN Information Transparency Initiative and how it relates to the joint ALAC-GAC Abu Dhabi statement on lowering barriers
5. Status and update on At-Large review
6. The process for chartering organization evaluation of the Work Stream 2 recommendations

1. For the benefit of many newcomers in the GAC, Yrjö explained  the role of At-Large, represented by the ALAC in the ICANN structure,  as the organizational home of internet end-users. ALAC acts  on their interests, working to ensure that the internet continues to serve the global public interest from an end-user perspective.  Presenting the three-tier organization of At-Large, Yrjö noted that At-Large and the GAC are the only ICANN bodies to have their “feet on the ground” round the world, with At-Large Structures and independent members in more than 100 countries and 177 governments in the GAC.

Answering a question from Manal on how the ALAC advisory process compares to the GAC, Alan explained that the focus of the At-Large is participating in PDP’s and other processes while they happen. Thus, absence of a need to give advice after the process means that ALAC has succeeded in already making its point.

2. It was noted that both GAC and ALAC have a strong interest in participating in the EPDP, but do not have many people who could devote 30-40 hours a week to it. That is why both need an adequate number of member/alternate seats to spread the burden.

3. Neither GAC nor ALAC has an internally agreed position on geographic names in the subsequent new gTLD procedures, but their members are active in WT5. GAC has compiled positions of individual governments  and submitted them to WT5.  Nonetheless, convergence of ideas and useful cooperation between GAC and ALAC representatives on WT5 was noted (Switzerland).  It was also pointed out that sensibility to the use of geographic names may be different from country to country (Indonesia) Alan stressed the need of compromises that make everybody more or less comfortable, because otherwise the multi-stakeholder model of ICANN could be hurt.

4. It was noted that the answers of the Board to the joint statement by the ALAC and the GAC on lowering barriers to informed, inclusive and meaningful participation have not entirely satisfied either.   It is understood that setting up a information management system takes time, but both ALAC and GAC hoped for some short-term solutions while waiting for the implementation of the Information Transparency Initiative.  So far, there has not been a follow-up while more acute matters have taken all the time.

5.  Some GAC members had been puzzled by the turns of the At-Large Review process. The GAC was informed about the developments, which just before ICANN62 had culminated in the Board accepting the recommendations that the ALAC itself  had worked out, based on the issues identified by the independent examiner, most of whose recommendations however had been found not implementable. 

Under this agenda issue, discussion turned back to the joint statement, because “packaging” information about ICANN in ways that people can understand will be one of the key things in the implementation of the At-Large Review.  The importance of the ALAC/GAC cooperation on this matter was stressed again, as members of both need to be able to answer questions like what ICANN is, what does it do and why are you traveling all the time?

6. Tijani (ALAC Co-Chair of the WS 2 CCWG) presented an update on the WS 2 process, where the concerns of the Board about four recommendations have been addressed by adding implementation guidance to the Final Report, to be sent to the chartering organizations and hopefully approved by ICANN63.

Notes were compared as to how GAC and ALAC were going about discussing the WS 2 recommendations. It was inquired, whether ALAC was going through them one by one. Alan replied that ALAC tried to answer the questions as they were out for public comment and is not likely to review the details again. In its public comments, ALAC had expressed general support for the whole set of recommendations, but noted that although each makes sense in its own right, the package as a whole is going to impose a very large burden on the ICANN Org and the SO/AC’s.

Appointment of the GAC Liaison to the ALAC

The GAC, meeting at ICANN62 in Panama on 28 June,  appointed  Ana Cristina Neves, the Representative of the Government of Portugal, as its first  Liaison to the ALAC.

The Liaison met at the end of the ICANN62 and decided, as their first concrete undertaking, to prepare  jointly a draft for a possible follow-up action to the joint ALAC/GAC statement at ICANN60 on lowering barriers to informed, inclusive and meaningful participation.