[council] JAS

[Neuman, Jeff]

Sorry to sound overly formulistic here, but the GNSO Council cannot authorize work that exceeds its scope.  Therefore, whether you call it a working group, discussion group, play group, study group or any other group, there are certain subjects that we the Council should not be acting on.  If people want to get together on their own and discuss these items, then by all means (lest I be criticized of stifling speech), but in the end, the GNSO Council may only address those items within its scope.

Things like discussing brokering arrangements between Registry front end and back-ends, establishing a foundation to give grants to TLD applicants, etc. are not GNSO items.  They should not be delivered to the GNSO (as the GNSO) and should not be taken up by the GNSO.  Of course that is only my opinion, but was the basis for my alternate motion.  According to the Bylaws, "There shall be a policy-development body known as the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), which shall be responsible for developing and recommending to the ICANN Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains."

Many of the items in the original motion and the ALAC-approved charter do not relate to "substantive policies related to generic top-level domains."

Jeffrey J. Neuman 
Neustar, Inc. / Vice President, Law & Policy


The information contained in this e-mail message is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient you have received this e-mail message in error and any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and delete the original message.



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Alan Greenberg
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 12:44 PM
To: Stéphane Van Gelder; GNSO Council
Cc: Bruce Tonkin; Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond
Subject: Re: [council] JAS


At this stage, I do not believe that there is 
anyone on the WG who is not interested in working 
on the "additional" items, so having the ALAC 
"take them back" really means that the same WG 
participants will work on them, but with a WG 
name that is different and we will need to schedule different meetings.

So why not just allow the single WG to work on 
the union of the two charters and report back, 
either with the recommendations flagged with 
respect to which AC/SO it is targeted at, or more 
awkwardly, produce two reports. Same net result with no artificial barriers.

I am no longer on the ALAC and cannot speak on 
the ALAC's behalf, but I believe that this has 
good support in the ALAC. I am copying Olivier on this note.

Alan

At 21/01/2011 07:06 AM, Stéphane Van Gelder wrote:

>Councillors,
>
>Bruce and I have been discussing the JAS 
>situation off list and he has a suggestion on 
>another possible way forward we might consider. 
>I would like to make it clear this is being 
>presented in both Bruce and myself's personal 
>capacity. This is just us brainstorming the 
>issue, not suggesting ways forward as Board member and GNSO Chair.
>
>One thing the GNSO could look at is asking the 
>JAS WG to work on topics of mutual interest or 
>common ground as defined in the GNSO motion. 
>ALAC could take items that are in addition back 
>for their own internal discussion. They could 
>then look at providing advice to the Board directly.
>
>As far as we are concerned, even though this is 
>a CWG, it is still up to us as the GNSO to 
>endorse those items we agree with and formally 
>provide our recommendation to the Board.
>
>Also, to avoid confusion between use of the term 
>working group within the GNSO procedures, maybe 
>the joint SO/AC groups could be called "discussion forums".
>
>Thanks,
>
>Stéphane