Operating Standards for Specific Reviews

The Operating Standards for Specific Reviews were produced by ICANN org through public consultation between 2016 and 2019. The ICANN Board approved the final version of the operating standards in June 2019

Background

Specific Reviews were introduced as a result of the Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) between ICANN and the United States Department of Commerce. The "specific commitments" of the AoC each became the subject of a review:

• Accountability and Transparency (ATRT) - focused on ICANN operations
• Security, Stability, & Resiliency (SSR) - focused on the DNS
• Registration Directory Service (RDS/WHOIS) - focused on registration data and public access to registration information
• Competition, Consumer Trust, and Consumer Choice (CCT) - ushered in as part of the New gTLD Program, this review is focused on the domain marketplace and the experience of registrants and other consumers

In October 2016, the ICANN Board approved an amendment to the ICANN Bylaws that codified Specific Reviews in Article 4.6. Article 4.6 requires that the operating standards for specific reviews "shall be developed through community consultation, including public comment opportunities as necessary that comply with the designated practice for public comment periods within ICANN." It also provides some foundational guidelines for the review process, selection of SO/AC representatives, diversity and representation of all interests, and other baseline operating standards. The Operating Standards for Reviews (OSFR) project was launched by ICANN org shortly after the addition of Article 4.6 to the Bylaws.

Community Consultation and Drafting Process

ICANN 57

Lars Hoffman hosted an open session at ICANN 57 in Hyderabad to "...contin[ue]...a dialogue that started during the drafting of the new Bylaws." His presentation included a skeleton draft of an operating standards document. The draft proposed a number of questions for the workshop to consider:

• How should the SO/AC Chairs’ selection process work in detail, to assure efficient proceedings, while adhering to all Bylaw requirements?
• How to assure diversity in Review Teams?
• How to integrate newcomers into reviews?
• How to assure that subparts of SO/ACs (AT-Large regions, GNSO SG/Cs, etc.) are all adequately represented across different reviews?
• How do we ensure institutional experience between different reviews whilst assuring to recruit new members to future Review Teams?
• How to include non-affiliated subject matter experts in the selection process for Review Teams?
• Who should be allowed to propose changes to the operating procedures once they are in place?
• What procedure should be in place to amend the operating procedures once they are in place?

There were limited comments in the session itself, with Hoffman suggesting that attendees might need to take some time to fully read and absorb the contents of the skeleton draft. Feedback from the session included a recommendation to generate a more substantive draft compiling best practices already in place (for example, within the GNSO's guidelines for policy development processes). The particulars of specific reviews - notably, the nomination and selection of review team members from the SOs and ACs - could then be developed and refined against that backdrop.

The MSSI hosted two webinars on February 21, 2017, to update the community on recent developments in the OSFR project and discuss next steps. As proposed, the MSSI team had created a draft with content folded in from various sources regarding current best practices around reviews. Because of a number of novel issues raised by the new language in Article 4.6, there were still many open questions regarding specific reviews. At the first webinar, Katrina Sataki expressed concern that the draft document to date did not include more content around standards for specific reviews: first, because the only provision in the Bylaws around operating standards was specifically housed in Article 4.6; and second, because the SSR2 and ATRT3 reviews were due to kick off in a short period of time, and it seemed unlikely that the operating standards would not be in place before then. Hoffman and Larisa Gurnick acknowledged the concerns, but noted that because Article 4.6 specifically required a consultative process, there was no way for staff to expedite the creation of the operating standards, and that it would be inappropriate for staff to tell the SOs and ACs what the policy should be.

ICANN 58

Following the February webinars, MSSI held a session on review operating standards at ICANN 58 in Copenhagen. The session was much shorter than its scheduled time, consisting largely of the presentation of material that echoed the themes of the February webinars. There was only one question, from Lito Ibarra, regarding if or how the operating standards would discuss the scope of each of the specific reviews. Hoffman responded that Article 4.6 had provisions defining the scope of each of the specific reviews, so that the operating standards would likely not address that detail, and instead focus on processes where all reviews could benefit from a standard approach.

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).