ICANN 12


Dates:	10th - 14th March 2002
Location:	Accra, Ghana
Host:	Ghana
Website:	ICANN 12

ICANN 12 took place in Accra, Ghana. The event saw the Public Forum run throughout the course of day on March 13, and the ICANN Board meeting on the March 14. On the 11th of March, there was also an 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 number 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 the 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 significant event in the history of ICANN. There were key points that were raised in regards to the independent review policy, as it had become recognized that the current policy 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 independent review of all current and previous ICANN board decisions 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 discussion been changed to lead to a new structure which was to consist of a review panel.

The members of the review panel now had to have a sufficient knowledge of all internet matters and the problems in which some person may come across. The panelist was also now to be current judges or were a judge in a previous occupation. ^[4]

During 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 their mission.^[5]