[Chapter-delegates] ISOC and ICANN consultation on President's Strategy Committee

[Bill Graham]

Dear all,

This note is to be sure you are aware of a consultation being  
conducted by ICANN on the future of the organization, and to seek your  
views in advance of a possible ISOC submission to the consultation  
process.  As some of you will already know, ICANN launched a public  
consultation on the President's Strategy Committee's "Transition  
Action Plan" (available from the main ICANN web page  
<www.icann.org>).  The deadline for comments to ICANN is 31 July 2008.

ICANN's consultation follows the February mid-term review of the US  
government's Joint Project Agreement with ICANN, and is part of  
ICANN's preparations for the end of the JPA in September 2009.  ISOC  
is a strong supporter of ICANN and its multi-stakeholder model, and  
has contributed actively to public discussions on the topic.  Most  
recently, ISOC submitted comments to the mid-term review (available at http://www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/issues/dns.shtml) 
, as did several ISOC chapters and individuals from our community.   
ICANN has been clear that it hopes to fulfill the obligations under  
the JPA and previous agreements with the US government in advance of  
the end of the JPA, and formed the President's Strategy Committee to  
help with that effort.  The new PSC papers and the current  
consultation are the latest steps in development of ICANN's  
institutional arrangements.

According to the President's Strategy Committee paper, the key  
requirements, for ICANN to fulfill its mandate are:

   1. ICANN will be sufficiently safeguarded against capture.
   2. ICANN will be sufficiently accountable to its multi-stakeholder  
community and will preserve the principles of bottom-up development of  
policies by those parties affected, and will maintain the structures,  
practices and bylaws of the ICANN model that have been developed by  
the community – including their regular review.
   3. ICANN will be internationalized, to allow it to meet the needs  
of the global Internet Community of the future.
   4. ICANN will be financially and operationally secure.
   5. ICANN will maintain its focus on organizational and operational  
excellence in performing its technical mission of ensuring safe and  
stable operations relating to the unique identifiers of the Internet,  
and of the IANA functions.

We would like to hear from you.   We want to get your views on whether  
ISOC should itself comment on the PSC paper.  Also, if you do think  
ISOC should submit comments, please indicate briefly and specifically  
what position you think ISOC should take and your reasoning.   In  
addition, given ISOC's purpose and responsibility to the Internet as a  
whole, we are also asking others, such as the ISOC Board, ISOC  
Organization members, other Internet community stakeholders (including  
ICANN) for their input, to ensure a well rounded thoughtful  
consultation lies behind any ultimate submission.

Because the deadline is coming close, please respond by SATURDAY, JULY  
26, to give me time to consider your responses and prepare our  
response.  I apologize for the short notice, which was caused by my  
vacation schedule, but do hope that you will be able to get back to me  
this week.

And, as always feel free to let me know how our consultation processes  
might be improved going forward.

Many thanks

Bill

========================
Bill Graham
Global Strategic Engagement
The Internet Society
graham at isoc.org
tel +1.613.231.8543 or
+1.703.439.2157