<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14px; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><div><div><div>Dear WG members,</div><div><br></div><div>Please find attached a draft note addressed to the IGO small group that was prepared by the WG co-chairs and staff, based on recent WG discussions and research done to date on the sovereign immunity issue. The co-chairs propose that following review and approval from the WG, they send these questions along with a cover note to the IGO small group, in the hope that the IGO representatives will continue to be responsive and helpful to ICANN’s efforts to work through the matter. The cover note will include the WG’s thanks to the IGO small group for its January response, along with an update on the WG’s current thinking on the “standing” issue and Article 6ter of the Paris Convention.</div><div><br></div><div>Please reply to the list via email with any comments you or your groups may have on the document as soon as you can. For your information, you will see from the draft that we have added another UDRP decision to the World Bank example that George provided earlier in our deliberations – this second case concerns the Bank for International Settlements, which also is on the GAC list of IGOs dating from 2013. I attach also an updated version of the staff Briefing Note on sovereign immunity and IGOs that was circulated last week – this update adds a reference to the Canadian statute that the Canadian Supreme Court relies on in the NAFO case which George brought to the WG’s attention last week. </div><div><br></div><div>Finally, please note that the GNSO Council has been updated on the WG’s progress during our recent face-to-face facilitated meeting in Singapore, and will take up at its meeting on Thursday the specific question of whether they agree with the WG’s thinking that the list of IGOs in the WIPO database who requested Article 6ter protection should be the list upon which the WG’s recommendations (if any) will be based, especially for “standing” and in principled preference to the original GAC list, which contains IGOs selected based on fulfillment of the .int eligibility criteria and which was the list that our WG was chartered to discuss. We will provide the WG with a further update following the Council’s deliberations on this point later this week. </div><div><br></div><div>Thanks and cheers</div><div>Mary</div><div><br></div><div><div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri">Mary Wong</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri">Senior Policy Director</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri">Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN)</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri">Telephone: +1 603 574 4892</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Calibri">Email: mary.wong@icann.org</font></font></div><div><br></div></div></div><div><br></div><div><div><br></div><br></div></div></div></body></html>