ICANN 51: Continuing Global Discussion of IANA Stewardship and ICANN Accountability

The event provided opportunities for many meetings between different stakeholders in the ICANN ecosystem, including the Address Supporting Organization (the RIR communities and their representatives), the ICANN Board and senior staff, the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), the ICANN At-Large community, and the many attendees involved in the generic and country code domain name communities.

Some key developments from the ICANN 51 meeting:

• Representatives of the Internet numbering community, including Number Resource Organization (NRO) Number Council members, Regional Internet Registry (RIR) staff and members of the five RIR communities, participated in mutual dialogues with various stakeholder groups. Discussions with the ICANN Board, ICANN staff and the At-Large community helped to clarify some of the key areas of interest and concern, particularly relating to the accountability of all actors involved in the IANA-related processes, and the importance of a well-defined community process for developing the IANA stewardship proposal.
• The Regional Internet Registries announced the proposal for a Consolidated RIR IANA Stewardship Proposal (CRISP) team. Drawn from RIR community members and staff, this group will collect the output of the five RIR community discussions and consolidate a single Internet numbering community proposal to the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG). More information on the CRISP team proposal is available at:
  https://www.nro.net/nro-and-internet-governance/iana-oversight/consolidated-rir-iana-stewardship-proposal-team-crisp-team
• The Cross Community Working Group (CWG) to Develop an IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal on Naming Related Functions held its first face-to-face meeting, and was the subject of a great deal of interest from meeting attendees. The CWG will be conducting its work transparently over the coming months, with more information available at:
  https://community.icann.org/display/gnsocwgdtstwrdshp/CWG+to+Develop+an+IANA+Stewardship+Transition+Proposal+on+Naming+Related+Functions
• Discussions on issues relating to ICANN accountability continued, including the establishment of an ICANN Accountability and Governance Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) to act on significant issues identified through community discussions. The RIRs and their communities will be represented in this group by several participants, including Athina Fragkouli, RIPE NCC Legal Counsel, who will also provide an update on this process during the Cooperation Working Group session at RIPE 69 on 6 November 2014. More information on these processes is available at:
  https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2014-10-10-en
• Finally, also linked to questions of accountability and particularly with regard to the IANA stewardship discussions, the five RIRs published a series of "Q&As" on RIR accountability at:
  https://www.nro.net/about-the-nro/rir-accountability

The next ICANN meeting will be held in early 2015, with details of the dates and location expected to be confirmed shortly.