ICANN 12


Dates:	10th - 14th March 2002
Location:	Accra, Ghana
Host:	Ghana
Website:	[6]
Historical Significance
This was the first ever ICANN Event held in Ghana

ICANN 12

ICANN 12 took place in Accra, Ghana. The ICANN Board had openly encouraged anybody, who was interested to come and take a seat at the meetings that were to follow over the four days, and the option was available for people who could not make it in person to the meetings, to watch and comment via the webcast and remote participation opportunities.

The event saw the Public Forums run throughout the course of the 13th March 2002 and the ICANN Board meeting on the 14th March. On the 11th March there was also a orientation workshop available for new attendees to the ICANN Meetings to attend. The Meetings that took place throughout the Event had Discussed various new subjects such as new TLD’s for Domains, and also Domain Name Deletion Procedures.^[1]

Meetings

ICANN Board meeting^[2]

The ICANN board meeting for this event had discussed a large amount of issues at this current time, the agenda for the ICANN board meeting was to be as follows -

Approval of MinutesAt Large/Public InvolvementICANN ReformApproval of Security Committee Charter.org
Reassignment.pro Registry Agreement.info Country Names
Emerging RIRsMessage from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Status of Independent Review Implementation

ICANN Public Forum

President's ReportPreliminary Budget/Budget PrioritiesAt Large Study Report/Public Involvement
ICANN Reform.org Reassignment.
Pro Registry Agreement
New TLD Evaluation Progress.info Country Names
Domain-Name Deletion Procedures

General assembly of the DNSO
.org separation and ALSC (organized by GA)
Special presentation: "Higher-Layer Naming Systems: Keywords and Other Non-DNS Identifiers"

Governmental Advisory Committee

Orientation workshop for new attendees (08:00 to 09:30)DNSO Constituency meetings (throughout the day)
ccTLD Registries Constituency Business ConstituencygTLD Registries
ConstituencyISP Constituency
Non-Commercial ConstituencyRegistrars Constituency

Intellectual Property Constituency

African ccTLD workshop

Developments

While the WIPO was and is conducting its work on the issue of geographical and geopolitical terms in domain names as part of its ongoing WIPO-2 process, the GAC became concerned that the issue required more immediate attention with the registration of many geographical terms, including country names during the .INFO "sunrise" period. The appropriate use of such names is of concern to governments and other public authorities in the light of the risk of their speculative and abusive registration and use, particularly by registrants and resellers without any relationship with the country or place concerned. The focus by the governments on the .INFO TLD was due to the "special nature" of .INFO and the particular interest by governments to use it for official governmental websites for providing information in international fora.

The GAC Communiqué of 9 September 2001 states that an interim "ad hoc" measure should be taken by ICANN and the Registry to prevent avoidable conflicts in .INFO due to the "very special nature" of .INFO as it relates to names of countries and distinct economies, as recognized in international fora. Given Afilias' willingness to address the GAC's concerns, the GAC recommended reservation of country names contained on the ISO 3166 Part 1 list by the .INFO Registry, contemplating their future assignment "to the corresponding governments and public authorities, at their request, for use.

On 10 September 2001, the ICANN Board discussed the GAC recommendation. Several Board members expressed concern over the technical feasibility and practicality of responding through the reservation of specific domain names, while there was also the view that it was appropriate to take steps to temporarily prevent registration of country and distinct economy names in order to allow time for the community to discuss and consider whether any policy should be adopted on the issue.^[3]

Historical Significance

There were many key issues raised throughout the duration of the sessions which had taken place at ICANN 12. It was a very signifivant event on the history of ICANN. There were key points which were raised in reagrds to the indepandant review policy, as it had become recognised tht the current ploicy had not been able to serve the purpose in which it had been designed to do.

The policy was set up to provide persons with an independant review of all current and previous ICANN board desicions or actions. however it had been noted that the Board acted or failed to act in a manner contrary to the ICANN's Articles of Incorporation or bylaws. The system had as a result of this discusison been changed to lead a new structure which was to consist of a review panal.

The memers of the review panal now had to have asufficent knowldge of all internet matters and the problems in which some person may come across. The panalist was also now to be current judges or were a judge in a previous occupation. ^[4]

Diring this meeting there was also a session which had discussed the current structure of ICANN. A reform was announced as it was believed that this would enable ICANN to produce the results they need and also to allow ICANN to become more effective in fulfilling there mission.^[5]