*NCSG Policy Committee Meeting* 23 March 2014 1630 - 1830, UTC +8 Location: Hullet Room *Draft Agenda (V. 2.0)* 1 NCSG Statement on IANA a. Discussion and agreement b. Steps for releasing it 2 Joint SO/AC/SG Statement on IANA 3 Board Seat 14 a. Should we contest the election? b. If so, process and timeline for whether and how to agree a NCSG candidate 4 GNSO Council agenda: http://singapore49.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-gnso-council/agenda-gnso-council-26mar14-en 5 Brief schedule discussion ahead of Constituency Day: which non-GNSO meetings should members attend on Monday & how to prioritise participation? a. ICANN Globalisation, Monday 1030 - 1230 and 1730- 1900 b. At Large discussion on Registration Directory Services (Whois): http://singapore49.icann.org/en/schedule/mon-rds, Monday 15-1700, Room: VIP c. Strategy Panels discussion, Monday 1515 - 1645, http://singapore49.icann.org/en/schedule?date=2014-03-24 d. Expert Working Group on Whois, 1630 - 1730, Room: Bras Basah e. Others? 6 AOB Participation: All NCSG members welcome to participate For remote participation per session: https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Current+NCSG+Meetings+-+Post+October+2012+ICANN+Annual+Meeting *Meeting Discussion Documents* *Agenda Item 1 **NCSG Statement on the globalization of the IANA functions* The Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) welcomes the 13 March 2014 statement from the U.S. Commerce Department announcing its intention to "transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community." We support this move because an Internet governance regime that gives one national government exclusive powers over a global resource is bound to be politically biased, divisive and promote tendencies toward Internet fragmentation. This change is long overdue. NCSG supports all 5 of the principles NTIA proposed to guide the transition. We agree that the transition should: * Support and enhance the multistakeholder model; * Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS; * Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; * Maintain the openness of the Internet; * Not replace the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization. It is very important to replace the current system with a carefully considered, well-designed alternative. We note that noncommercial stakeholders have been leaders in developing plans for the proposed transition. Submissions to the Netmundial conference from two NCSG members, the Internet Governance Project and Avri Doria, have set out specific blueprints for the transition. Consistent with both of these proposals, NCSG proposes an additional principle to guide the transition. The transition should: * Enhance the accountability of ICANN through structural separation of the DNS root zone management functions from ICANN's policy making functions The root zone management functions, which are currently performed by Verisign, Inc. and IANA under contracts with the U.S. government, are clerical, technical and operational, The policy making functions of ICANN, on the other hand, are highly political. NCSG believes that those two aspects of DNS governance must be kept apart, in separate organizations. Separating them ensures that those with policy and political objectives must win support for their ideas in a fair and open policy development process, and cannot arbitrarily impose them upon Internet users and service providers by virtue of their control of the operational levers of the global domain name system. The existing IANA contract attempts to keep the two separate; however, if ICANN simply absorbs the IANA and Verisign functions without any oversight from the U.S. government, there is a danger that the two could become integrated and intermingled in unhealthy ways. That is why the NCSG, along with supporters from other stakeholder groups, will insist on this new principle of separation during the transition process. The Department of Commerce has asked ICANN to "conven[e] stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan." Unfortunately, ICANN's management seems to have interpreted this as a mandate to implement its own transition plan, in which it would simply take over the IANA functions with no oversight. NCSG wishes to remind ICANN that it has been charged with convening a process, not with controlling it. The transition will not work unless ICANN runs a truly open and deliberative process that allows the all ideas to be considered and the best ideas to win. NCSG is the voice of civil society and nonprofit organizations in ICANN's domain name policy making organ, the Generic Names Supporting Organization. It is composed of two constituencies, the Noncommercial Users Constituency (http://ncuc.org) and the Non-Profit Operational Constituencies (http://www.npoc.org) *Agenda Item 2 - * *Joint Statement on IANA Globalisation* We, the signatories to this statement, welcome the announcement by the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to transition oversight over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function to the global multistakeholder community, a development that was envisaged since the early daysof the IANA functions contract. We fully support that the Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been assigned the task to convene the multi-stakeholder process to develop the transition plan and we will work with our respective communities to ensure that any transition plan will: - Maintain the security, stability and resiliency of the top level of the Internet's system of unique identifiers; - Support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet coordination; - Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services. ICANN, in its role as the administrator of the IANA Functions, has performed these functions since 1998, ensuring the continued security, stability, and resiliency of the top level of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. The strength and stability of the IANA functions are critical to the operation of the Internet. The processes around the IANA functions should therefore continue to be carefully specified, taking into account transparency, accountability as well as the role of the multi-stakeholder model in this context. Through our respective communities we commit to support and engage in the multistakeholder-designed process that is consensus-driven, participatory, open and transparent that will launch at the ICANN 49 Meeting in Singapore. We will work to make this process collaborative and globally-accountable while the IANA functions continue to ensure the continued security, stability and resiliency of the top level of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. *Documents for information (not discussion)* *NPOC statement on NTIA Annouoncement* NPOC, the Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns stakeholder Constituency within ICANN, welcomes the U.S. Government's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announcement of its intention to "transfer key internet domain name functions to the global stakeholder community" and pledges its support for the challenging work required for this task. NTIA has charged ICANN to convene global stakeholders to develop a transition proposal that strengthens the multistakeholder model; maintains the security, stability and resilience of the Internet DNS; meets the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the relevant domain name system (DNS) functions; and maintains the openness of the Internet. NPOC's stakeholder constituency has a keen interest in both this process and its outcome. NPOC focuses on the impact of DNS policies, and their effects, on the Not-for-Profit civil society stakeholder community. NPOC stands for a multistakeholder approach to empowerment and capacity building for engagement in Internet governance; policy and process transparency; and stakeholder use of a DNS system that supports community based and just socio-economic development. NPOC looks forward to playing an active role on the development of a transition proposal process that respects the principles of openness and engagement that have been part of the core DNA of the Internet from its inception. NPOC intends to collaborate with existing stakeholder constituencies and others to nurture a growing civil society stakeholder base, both within ICANN and the transition proposal, and within the not-for-profit and civil society communities of the larger global Internet ecosystem.