
Brief Overview
Purpose: This Public Comment proceeding aims to gather community input on the third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3) Final Report. Further, the Board welcomes community feedback on the suggestion in ATRT3’s 1 June 2020 letter to the Board that:
“Given the recommendation in Section 8 of its report ATRT3 is proposing significant changes to Organizational Reviews and Specific Reviews. ATRT3 strongly suggests that the ICANN Board implement a moratorium on launching any new Organizational and Specific Reviews until it has made a decision on this recommendation.”
Current Status: The ATRT3 Final Report is issued for Public Comment to inform Board action on the ATRT3’s final recommendations.
Next Steps: Per the ICANN Bylaws (Section 4.6(a)(vii)(C)), the Board shall consider the final report within six months of receipt of the final report, i.e. by 1 December 2020.
The Board will consider a feasibility analysis and impact assessment of the implementation of recommendations, which will take into account initial cost and resource estimates and dependencies with other ongoing efforts within the community, and the report of the Public Comment submissions received. The Board will then direct implementation of the recommendations that were approved and provide written rationale for the decision if any recommendations are not approved.
Section I: Description and Explanation
On 1 June 2020, the third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3) submitted its final report to the ICANN Board.
The ATRT3 Final Report contains five recommendations with regard to ICANN accountability and transparency in the following areas:
- Prioritization of review and Cross-Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability, Work Stream 2 (WS2) recommendations
- Amending Specific and Organizational Reviews
- Accountability and transparency relating to Strategic and Operational Plans including accountability indicators
- Public input
- Assessment of the implementation of ATRT2 recommendations
ATRT3 makes a further suggestion in its 1 June 2020 letter to the ICANN Board, on which the Board welcomes community feedback on during this Public Comment proceeding:
“Given the recommendation in Section 8 of its report ATRT3 is proposing significant changes to Organizational Reviews and Specific Reviews ATRT3 strongly suggests that the ICANN Board implement a moratorium on launching any new Organizational and Specific Reviews until it has made a decision on this recommendation.”
Section II: Background
The Accountability and Transparency Review is mandated by ICANN’s Bylaws (Article 4, Section 4.6) to review “ICANN‘s execution of its commitment to maintain and improve robust mechanisms for public input, accountability, and transparency so as to ensure that the outcomes of its decision-making reflect the public interest and are accountable to the Internet community.”
On 20 December 2018, ICANN announced the selection of an 18-member team to conduct the third Accountability and Transparency Review (ATRT3). ATRT3 held its first face-to-face meeting on 3-5 April 2019. On 16 December 2019, ATRT3 published its draft report for Public Comment. ATRT3 received sixteen comments on its draft report, as documented in the Public Comment staff report.
ATRT3 is mandated by the Bylaws to issue its final report within one year of convening its first meeting. On 3 April 2020, ATRT3 leadership advised the ICANN Board that the Review Team would be delayed in submitting its final report to the Board due to the impact on ATRT3’s work of changing ICANN67 to a remote participation-only meeting. ATRT3 submitted its final report to the Board within its revised timeline.
Per the Bylaws, the issues that the Accountability and Transparency Review Team may assess include, but are not limited to, the following:
(A) assessing and improving Board governance which shall include an ongoing evaluation of Board performance, the Board selection process, the extent to which the Board’s composition and allocation structure meets ICANN‘s present and future needs, and the appeal mechanisms for Board decisions contained in these Bylaws;
(B) assessing the role and effectiveness of the GAC‘s interaction with the Board and with the broader ICANN community, and making recommendations for improvement to ensure effective consideration by ICANN of GAC input on the public policy aspects of the technical coordination of the DNS;
(C) assessing and improving the processes by which ICANN receives public input (including adequate explanation of decisions taken and the rationale thereof);
(D) assessing the extent to which ICANN‘s decisions are supported and accepted by the Internet community;
(E) assessing the policy development process to facilitate enhanced cross community deliberations, and effective and timely policy development; and
(F) assessing and improving the Independent Review Process.
(iii) The Accountability and Transparency Review Team shall also assess the extent to which prior Accountability and Transparency Review recommendations have been implemented and the extent to which implementation of such recommendations has resulted in the intended effect.
(iv) The Accountability and Transparency Review Team may recommend to the Board the termination or amendment of other periodic reviews required by this Section 4.6, and may recommend to the Board the creation of additional periodic reviews.
The above items are included in the ATRT3 scope, along with the following topics (see the terms of reference and work plan for more information):
- Accountability and transparency relating to Strategic and Operational Plans including accountability indicators
- Prioritization and rationalization of activities, policies and recommendations
Section III: Relevant Resources
- Third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3) Final Report
- ATRT3 Final Report Prologue and Executive Summary:
Section IV: Additional Information
- ATRT3 Draft Report Public Comment Proceeding: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/atrt3-draft-report-2019-12-16-en
- ATRT3 wiki space: https://community.icann.org/x/QK7DAw
- Accountability and Transparency Review page on icann.org: https://www.icann.org/resources/reviews/specific-reviews/atrt
- Second Accountability and Transparency Review (ATRT2) Final Report: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/final-recommendations-31dec13-en.pdf
- Second Accountability and Transparency Review implementation wiki page: https://community.icann.org/display/atrt/ATRT2+Implementation+Program
- Open Date: 16 Jun 2020 23:59 UTC
- Close Date: 31 Jul 2020 23:59 UTC
- Staff Report Due: 14 Aug 2020 23:59 UTC
This ICANN announcement was sourced from: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/atrt3-final-report-2020-06-16-en