First GNSO Organizational Review

The First GNSO Organizational Review (GNSO1) was initiated in 2008, with implementation of improvements continuing throughout 2012.

Background

Article 4.4 of the ICANN Bylaws requires periodic review of all supporting organizations and advisory committees, as well as the Nominating Committee. The bylaws state three objectives for the review:

1. to determine whether that organization, council or committee has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure;
2. if so, whether any change in structure or operations is desirable to improve its effectiveness; and
3. whether that organization, council or committee is accountable to its constituencies, stakeholder groups, organizations and other stakeholders.

Organizational reviews are conducted by independent examiners, selected through a competitive bidding process. The independent examiner works in consultation with a working group assembled by the board, who will act as implementation shepherds once the final report of the independent examiner is submitted. The review parameters are set by the ICANN Board, and those parameters as well as other avenues of inquiry are typically included in the request for proposals (RFP) for independent examiners. Reviews can take anywhere from three to five years to complete. The full review process includes seven phases, including the implementation of recommendations from the review. Reviews must be conducted at least every five years, measuring from the date that the final report of the previous review was accepted by the ICANN Board. The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) is one of the supporting organizations subject to Article 4.4 review.

It is notable that the GNSO1 review began with a review of reviews: the GNSO had previously been reviewed by the London School of Economics Public Policy Group in 2006, and by Patrick Sharry in 2004. These prior reviews were incorporated into the work process of the GNSO1 Review working group.

Initiation

The board assembled a GNSO Review Working Group of the Board Governance Committee, and approved its charter, in March 2007 The working group was charged to answer the traditional Article 4.4 (as amended at the time) questions: does the GNSO have a continuing purpose within the ICANN structure; and if so, what can be done to improve its effectiveness? The charter document goes further, tasking the working group to develop a "comprehensive proposal" to improve the effectiveness of the GNSO.

Review of Prior Assessments

The working group focused on three previous reviews in its information-gathering process: the Patrick Sharry review of 2004; the GNSO's own self-assessment, performed as part of the preliminary work to commission Sharry's report; and the review prepared by the London School of Economics Public Policy Group in 2006.

GNSO Self-Assessment

The GNSO, in preparing the Terms of Reference for the its 2004 review, conducted a self-review process. The self-review described a number of policy development successes, including updates to the transfer policy, WHOIS, and deletion policy. The GNSO made three categories of recommendations:

1. Recommendations re: the ICANN Bylaws: maintain GNSO Council compostion of 3 representatives from each constituency; amend the policy development process bylaws to state that PDP timelines are flexible, and may be set and revised by the GNSO Council to reflect the work being considered and status updates from the working group.
2. Recommendations re: staff support: multiple requests for staff support around the policy development process, task forces, and work of the GNSO Council; make legal staff available to the GNSO Council, task forces, and subcommittees, and in particular for review of policy recommendations and other policy statement for compliance with bylaws and contractual obligations; and create monitoring, compliance, and complaint policies related to gTLDs.
3. Actions required of the GNSO Council: Ensure that legal advice from ICANN staff is in writing and allow registrars or registries to submit the opinion of their counsel; ensure that policies are ready to be implemented upon approval; establish key metrics for measuring the success of a given party; encourage community-wide participation in the policy development process.

2004 Review by Patrick Sharry

Sharry, a strategic planning and change management consultant, reviewed the GNSO Council, without reference to the self-assessment described above, using interviews with GNSO Council members and others, as well as a review of policy and process documentation prepared by the GNSO for that purpose. The report reached many of the same conclusions as the GNSO's self-assessment. Sharry found, in particular, that ICANN staff support of GNSO activities fell "well short of the standards outlined in the bylaws." The review also found substantial gaps between the adoption of policy proposals and the implementation of those policies, with minimal attention devoted to compliance or tracking of the success of the implementation. Sharry provided recommendations for improving the GNSO's core functions, but was also complementary of both the Council's commitment and dedication, as well as its leadership.

As part of its background documentation for the broader community, the improvements implementation team summarized the similarities between the GNSO's self assessment and Sharry's report:

These reviews shared a common approach in certain respects: (i) allowing for more flexibility in the PDP process; (ii) ensuring strong Staff support for policy development; and (iii) developing better mechanisms for public participation and discussion.

2006 Review by the London School of Economics

In 2006, ICANN commissioned the Public Policy Group of the London School of Economics (LSE) to review the GNSO and its operations. The questions were again drawn from Article 4 of the bylaws (as they existed at the time): did the GNSO still serve a purpose, and if so, what improvements could be made to its process and operations?

The LSE report shared some common findings with Sharry's review and the GNSO self-assessment. Once again, the established timelines for policy development processes were deemed to be unreasonable given the nature and complexity of the work involved. The LSE echoed Sharry's report regarding the lack of impact assessment or formal metrics for judging the success of implemented policies. Although the LSE found that ICANN staff support of the GNSO had grown in meaningful ways, further capacity-building and tool training could be accomplished to further strengthen trust, clarity, and efficiency in interactions between staff and GNSO teams.

The LSE report diverged from the 2004 assessments in its attention to the structure, composition, and representativeness of the GNSO and its constituencies. In the executive summary of the report, the team described its objections to the current constituency model:

The current pattern of Constituencies is relatively complex and no longer seems well-adapted to the needs of all stakeholders in the rapidly changing Internet community. Although the Constituency structure does provide a potential home for almost all types of interest, there are signs that the current structures tend to reflect a snapshot of interests that were present at the beginning of this decade and lack internal flexibility to incorporate new types of stakeholders from commercial and civil society. There is consequently much scope to grow and diversify membership of the GNSO, and to adapt structures in such a way that they are flexible and agile enough to respond to new policy development issues.

The team also noted "worrying signs of dominance of some constituencies" by a small group of people, and low participation rates in policy development work by members of constituencies.

The report offered a number of recommendations that focused on structural flexibility, representation, and growing the GNSO's ability to shift with the ever-shifting environment of the Internet. The report identified four key principles that should guide recommendations for change: increasing visibility and transparency of operations; increasing the representativeness of the GNSO Council and its Constituencies; increasing structural adaptability; and improving mechanisms for reaching "genuinely consensus opinions."

Through this lens, the LSE team found cause to recommend substantial reforms. Among the report's twenty-four recommendations, several significant changes were proposed:

• Reduce the number of constituencies to three: registration interests, business users, and civil society.
• Establish a "direct membership" in ICANN for firms, other organizations, and individuals. Guide newly-joined members into relevant constituencies, and provide staff support at the constituency level to sustain their activities and outreach work.
• Create "radically improved ICANN and GNSO websites" that can effectively represent the GNSO to the Internet community.
• Abolish weighted voting for registration interests. Give registration interests and business users an effective veto over non-consensus change. Raise the threshold for "consensus policy" from 66 to 75 per cent agreement.
• Reduce teleconference and remote meetings and shift to increased face-to-face meetings of the Council. Reimburse the travel expenses of councilors to enable this.
• Expand the use of task forces with independent outside expertise, to broaden the involvement of interests from outside ICANN and to speed up policy development.
• Leverage staff expertise to speed up policy development and help focus the Council's attention on key issues and decisions.
• Establish term limits for GNSO Councilors. Create stronger protections against the non-disclosure of interests.

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).

Policy Development Process