IAC Report to Council 15/09/01

— filed under: ccTLD

International Affairs Committee Report to the Council, InternetNZ

It has been a busy time for international matters, with attendances at 2 sets of meetings. The focus has been the development of the Support Organisation for ccTLDs ("ccSO"). Improvements to the regional and international associations has also occurred.

APTLD

Taiwan

Peter Dengate Thrush attended the board meeting in Taipei on August 25. This was held in conjunction with an outreach and training session with APNIC. The board meeting spent considerable time on the issues of the ccSO, receiving presentations from Peter de Blanc and Peter Dengate Thrush.

The board resolved to support the formation of an international incorporated association of ccTLD managers to negotiate with ICANN, the GAC and others, and which would operate under and MoU with ICANN as its ccSO. A copy of the Taipei resolution can be seen at.

Presentations were also received by Kilnam Chon, on multilingual name issues, from Dr Ching-Yi Liu on the forthcoming At Large Study Committee report, from Paul Wilson on APNIC and address issues, and from Peter Dengate Thrush on ICANN issues.

Uruguay

The board met again in Montevideo on September 4, with members and other guests present.

The Taipei resolution was confirmed.

ICANN staff (Theresa Swineheart and Andrew McGlaughlin) were present to discuss issues of the draft contracts, posted on September 2.

With the addition of rules for conducting elections, the Articles are now complete and a timeline to agreement and incorporation before the LA ICANN meeting was agreed upon. Likely candidate legal systems and countries in which to incorporate were New Zealand, and possibly Hong Kong and Singapore. The subcommittee would call for final information from those jurisdictions and make a selection on-line in October.

There will be a workshop on local DRP organised for the LA meeting by the DRP WG, led by Rainbow Shue (.cn).

The next meeting of the board will be in LA on 11 November.

The AGM of the APTLD will be held as part of APRICOT, in Bangkok 3-7 March 2002.

Country Code Constituency meeting, Montevideo

The ccTLDs met in Montevideo on September 5 and 6. Much of the time was spent in discussing the ccSO. A combined presentation of the presentations from Taipei was presented by Peter Dengate Thrush. A further presentation was received from Elisabeth Porteneuve.

A milestone agreement was reached among ccTLD managers that there were issues of global policy that the ccTLDs would permit to be developed through the ICANN process, and which would be binding on ccTLDs. Important safeguards in the development of that policy were the enforced application of the rules of consensus decision making employed in the NSI agreements, the creation of the ccSO as the forum for policy development, and the limits to ICANN's mandate to technical issues of names and numbers.

There was considerable discussion about the form of the SO. Further debate is required among the member ccTLDs on whether a separately incorporated body is required, or whether the constituency can migrate to become the SO without a separate body.

The nature of the issues which are appropriate for the ICANN process now need to be identified, the outcome of which is awaited with interest by other constituencies.

All stakeholders are anxious that an interface for non-ccTLD input to the ccSO be available.

The Canadian representatives tabled their dissatisfaction with the draft contracts supplied by ICANN staff. These ignore the ccTLD contract and best practices, and are based on drafts nearly ready for signing between Australia* and ICANN.

There was further discussion about taking outside legal counsel to assist in the contract preparation and negotiation, and re-forming the ccTLD Contracts WG. CENTR will be discussing these in detail in their forthcoming Slovenia meeting (Sept 24-25).

Meetings were held with the ISP, IPC and Business constituencies, jointly, and the Non Coms who visited. Peter de Blanc and Peter Dengate Thrush visited the g-Registries meeting and explained and answered questions. A set of written questions has been received, and written answers will be despatched. The primary concern is competition policy. Other useful outreach was conducted.

The At Large Study committee also visited. Insufficient attention had been paid to this work by the ccTLDs and no position has yet been reached.

A vote was taken ensuring that directions to Names Council representatives on voting for a DNSO board member were binding, not merely advisory, and the reps present accepted that. A vote followed, preceded by a Q&A with the candidates present, Paul Kane and Amadeu Abril y Abril. The latter was elected 34:25, with minor votes to the 2 other candidates Lane and Morfin.

The conclusions of the meeting are set out in the Communique

IANA WORKSHOP

This item is covered in the report of the Executive Director. The global issues raised will form an important part of the meeting in LA in November.

NAMES COUNCIL

The report by our Names Council reps (Peter de Blanc) focussed on the formation of the SO. There is a need for considerable effort by the ccTLDs in providing instruction to, and receiving feedback from the reps to Names Council.

Amadeu Abril y Abril was elected to the Board 11:10.

GENERAL COMMENT

The advantages and benefits of full time secretariats in APTLD and ccTLD are continuing to be evident and to develop. These include the level of organisation and preparation for meetings, sponsored lunches and speed with which papers are moved around. Much remains to be done, especially with outreach and co-ordination of ccTLD effort. New Zealand continues to enjoy much support, and is greatly appreciated for its leadership and contributions.

CURRENT ISSUES

The committee seeks feedback from Council on the draft contracts, the ALSC report, and the general issue of ICANN restructuring, including the question of further support for the IDNO if the At Large membership is identified as domain name holders.

TERRORISM in the USA

Many people at the meeting were delayed or otherwise affected by the attacks of Tuesday morning (September 11, local time) Condolences and good wishes have been extended by Sue Leader and Peter Dengate Thrush on behalf of the .NZ community.

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