Greetings NCSG'ers:

ICANN has released a new timeline for the CCWG Accountability work (and also CWG IANA work) attached to this email and available on this wiki:
  https://community.icann.org/display/acctcrosscomm/Drafts+for+CCWG-Accountability

In sum, the current plan is to have our initial outline of recommendations for accountability reforms in Work Stream 1 by 20 April to go out for public comment.  Work Stream 1 are those accountability reforms which must be implemented or committed to before the NTIA stewardship transition can occur.  The Work Stream 1 issues are community empowerment, reforming the Independent Review Panel and Reconsideration Request Processes, recalling board members, translating parts of the AOC into ICANN's bylaws, a "golden bylaw" to limit ICANN's mission creep, revising ICANN's mission and core values in line with AOC.

Probably the thorniest of the WS1 issues is the "community empowerment" goal.  The various proposals for this goal include turning ICANN into a membership organization, tweeking its existing status by empowering the SO/ACs through bylaws revisions, a proposal for a "community veto" on key board decisions, creation of a "community council" or a permanent CCWG on accountability, etc.  These are big complex issues and we will need to make a recommendation that goes out for public comment on 20 April.   I believe Rafik is in the process of organizing an NCSG webinar on this subject and we can also discuss the issue on Tuesday's NCSG monthly call.

At the Buenos Aires ICANN meeting in June, there will be much discussion of these proposals and refinements of the initial recommendations based upon the feedback of the first comment period and the engagement sessions in BA.  There will be a second comment period in July to hammer out the details of whichever mechanisms are ultimately selected for adoption by the CCWG.  ICANN's timeline says Comment Period 2 is "if needed" but of course these issues are of such significance and we are undertaking such sweeping reforms that a continued dialogue with the community is mandatory and will be needed.

And then 9 August is when we are planning to submit the final recommendations to the SO's and AC's for their approval, who have 21 days to approve them (has GAC ever approved of anything in 21 days?); and then they go to the ICANN Board of Directors for approval on 30 August (assuming everybody approved everything).  Then we also start work on Work Stream 2 accountability reforms, which are all the other accountability reforms that didn't have to be committed to before ICANN can be cut loose from the NTIA.

I'd very much appreciate hearing NCSG members' thoughts on these proposed reforms in the coming days.

Thanks,
Robin