JOINT SO/AC Workshop: Improving Institutional Confidence - the Way Ahead ICANN Meeting - Cairo Monday, 3 November 2008 >> Our longtime consultant and participate in the ICANN world, Patrick Sharry. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, everybody. (inaudible). >> Microphone! >> Mike! >>PATRICK SHARRY: Turn me up a little bit, please. Is that any better? Ah. Lovely. Thank you. We're here this afternoon for a joint meeting of the supporting organizations and advisory committees. And our agenda comes in two parts. The first session, we're going to spend looking at some of the work of the PSC and discussing that in the supporting organization and advisory committee context. And the second part will be to look at new gTLDs, IDN ccTLDs, and related issues, again, from a joint supporting organizations and advisory committees perspective. To kick off the PSC section, we've got Peter Dengate Thrush, who's going to give us a little bit of an update on where the work of that committee that is come to and where that -- before we open discussions with the supporting organizations and advisory committees. Thanks, Peter. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Patrick, and thank you all for coming after lunch. I appreciate this is a difficult slot. I'm Peter Dengate Thrush, I'm one of the co-chairs of the President's Strategy Committee. This is not a President's Strategy Committee session. This is a different beast. This is organized as a cross organizational meeting. And if you look at the table, you see what an interesting bunch are here. We have the chair of the ccNSO, the chair of the at large, the chair of the Government Advisory Committee, the chair of the GNSO, and the chair of the board. So this is really a first for ICANN. And it's an excellent -- an excellent initiative. But -- goodness, I'm not sure what that is. But.... That's technology, so it must work. So I'm going to give you an update on what the President's Strategy Committee has been doing. It's a project we're calling improving institutional confidence. And then we'll talk a little bit about it in this new cross silo. Let me first begin by acknowledging, I've seen in the audience two other members of the President's Strategy Committee. Can I ask Raimundo and Yrjo just to stand up. And Paul Twomey is, of course, the chair. So I don't feel as outnumbered as I did. There are other members of the President's Strategy Committee here as well. I can't see that very well. >> (inaudible). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: So we have the President's Strategy Committee. We've built a series of consultation topics. We're going to look at that. We're going to look at what we've learned from the consultations we've had and then what you can expect from the President's Strategy Committee. The committee itself, mentioned that Paul Twomey and I co-chair that. And I think you can take from that that you've got the CEO and president and the chairman of the board on this is an indication of the importance organizationally that we put behind this work. We have board member Jean-Jacques Subrenat, who is an ex-French diplomat; Yrjo Lansipuro, who I have introduced to you, is a Finnish diplomat, or an ex-diplomat; Pierre Dandjinou, from Africa, will be known to most of you; Marilyn Cade, who's been an active involved member from the business constituency since the beginning of ICANN; and Raimundo Beca, who I have introduced to you, is from the address community and from Latin America. So we have representation from each of the continents and we have representation from most of the communities across ICANN. We have been doing a series of outreach meetings. We have had so far in the last six months meetings in Paris, in Montevideo, Christchurch, Geneva, Washington, D.C., and Dakar. There is a very vigorous online public comment process going on. The themes that have emerged from the consultations, first of all, protection against capture of ICANN, either from inside, so that we don't get taken over by the country code managers or the GAC or the at large or the business constituents or any group, or the staff, or the board, so that there's no capture of ICANN and its processes from inside, but also, of course, we need to be cautious and have mechanisms to protect against capture from outside. External governments, external corporations, external threats. The other thing that we've worked out is that we have to internationalize ICANN. We have a serious impediment to doing business with ICANN for some countries and some organizations because it is legally a California not-for-profit corporation. There is actually a difficulty in doing business. Some countries aren't able to sign agreements. But more than that, it is actually -- as we grow into an international organization, a California not-for-profit just doesn't scale. If you set up an international global business, you wouldn't start now with a California not-for-profit. And what we've been doing, as we'll say, is we've looked around the world for the kinds of legal models that are available that do work for a global not-for-profit, which is a relatively unusual structure. And along the way, we also have looked at the financial and operational security. We have to have regular sources of income. And we have to make sure they're properly managed. And we have to make sure that things are stable. So if we're going to run a business into the future, we have to make sure that the usual business conditions are met. And then there's the key to most of us, the security and stability of the domain name system, the address system, and the protocol identifiers. The other thing that's emerged is that we want to preserve and the community wants us to preserve the bottom-up model. The sort of thing we're doing today in fact where we take all of our issues and we work them through in a bottom-up way so that the people who are affected by those processes are involved in the discussions surrounding them. So those are the things we want to keep. And what have we learned from this? Well, the community has said, we now want a lot more detail. Tell us about this internationalization project. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Who's going to own it? What's its board going to be? What's the board going to be? How are we going to fire that board? And so on. They want measurable goals. And the standard issue that's arising in relation to all ICANN consultations touches this one as well. Please, can we have more time to respond in the public comment process. So what are we going to do about those things? Well, we are about to publish a great deal more detailed information. There is actually going to be a PSC session on Thursday, where the President's Strategy Committee will be reporting and discussing. So we'll go into a little bit more detail about that. We are about to publish a detailed legal memorandum explaining issues surrounding the international legal presence, for example. And in the time scale that we'll lay out, you will see that early in the new year, there's going to be greatly more detailed material. I have to say that that's possible now with the freeing up of quite a lot of staff time, having produced the 1100-odd pages in relation to new gTLDs, we now have a little bit of capacity on board to actually start producing documentation for the president's strategy work. And included in that will be an implementation timetable with our milestones so people will know where we are. And then say this consultation begins in January, with documents becoming available in, hopefully, from November. If you want to make comments, please feed them into the consultation process. There's a number of ways of doing that. And Kieren, who's our manager of public participation, is very active in making himself available and the services of his office so that the public can communicate and can consult in this process. What will we be doing from now on? Well, I've mentioned the legal analysis that's coming up very shortly. There will be timetables for the publication of further information. And, hopefully, a draft implementation plan in considerable detail of the steps. A quick look at the timetable through to our next meeting. We're going to be publishing documents in November. By January, we hope to have a draft implementation plan to the board. One of my own rules for the board is that papers have to be available reasonably in advance of board meetings. The board meeting's in early February. So that means that will have to be done by the end of January. And after the board has commented, approved, disapproved, et cetera, changed, or whatever the time -- the implementation plan, that will then be published for detailed comment. Then by Mexico City, we expect a final implementation for board decision. So that's fairly compressed. But we feel we have to move. So that's that. That's an update of where we are. If you're -- I'm happy to -- I'll be here for some of the time. But for a more detailed discussion and a report from the President's Strategy Committee, come on Thursday. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. The reason for having our joint supporting organization and advisory committee meeting today is to get the views of all of those organizations in the one -- at the one time in the one place. In doing that, what we're looking to do, both in the PSC, improving institutional confidence session that we're having now, and again later this afternoon with the new gTLD and related issues session, is not to come to consensus about the answers to questions that might be posed. Rather, what we're hoping to do is actually to come up with a joint list of questions and to have a little bit of discussion about clarification of those and meaning and intent of those questions. We certainly aren't looking to get all of them answered. Having said that, there may be times in the conversation where there are members of the audience who have an answer to a particular question. And we're happy for them to take a microphone and contribute that, where appropriate. So, to start off our conversation about the work of the PSC and the improving institutional confidence process, I'm going to ask each of the SO and AC chairs just to give us a little bit of feedback about what's been happening within their own organization in this regard. As we go, we're trying a little experiment. So long as what's happening behind me is successful, I hope to be able to capture some of those on these white boards as we go. And, again, if the technology is smiling at us, we should be able to see those projected up on that screen over there. But as I say, it's a little bit of an experiment. It might take a little while to get that right. Let me just, while the last little bit of technology innovation is happening down there, introduce the chairs of the SOs and ACs. We have Chris Disspain from. ccNSO. Cheryl Langdon-Orr from the ALAC. Janis Karklins from the GAC. And Avri Doria from the GNSO. We'll work in that order, across from Chris. Because, Chris, I know that you will have done your homework. So, Chris, can we, from a ccNSO perspective, hear the reactions of that community to the work of the PSC and the improving institutional confidence project? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Patrick, and good afternoon, everybody. Yes, I can give you a couple of -- perhaps a couple of bullet points. It would be fair to say that the work of the President's Strategy Committee in this particular issue has not been at the top of the agenda of the CC community. We've been fairly preoccupied with a few other things. And as such, we have not held any formal ccNSO discussions about it. We have, of course, disseminated the report and encouraged our members to -- and, in fact, nonmembers -- to put in comments. But in conversations that I have had with various people, there are perhaps a couple of points that have been made to me. The first one is that I think it might be useful to clarify why this work is being done by the PSC. Because I'm not entirely sure that my community understands why this is sitting in the PSC. And the second is a much more specific point to do with the document, which is that the status of the experts group, which, in an original version, -- and I'm paraphrasing -- it said that there was going to be a group of experts corralled somewhere. And in the latest version, that's been changed to, "We're going to continue to think about having a group of experts." So those are the two main areas that have been raised with me. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Chris. Peter, have you got a couple of quick responses there? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Chris. And, yes, I know the ccNSO's been busy doing tremendous work with the IDNs. And we look forward to the IDN ccTLD stuff later in the week. The first question really is why the President's Strategy Committee. And that is because there are a variety of mechanisms for doing things in ICANN. There are president's strategy committees, which are intended to include a wider range of players, because the president, Paul Twomey, has the ability to appoint anybody that's appropriate to a committee. The other mechanisms, for example, are committees of the board. And under the bylaws, only directors can serve on committees of the board. So a board committee is not appropriate. After that, we tend to break down into smaller groups that are inappropriate for a topic like this, where you would go into one of the individual ACs or support organizations and set up a working group inside the GNSO. And our view was that this was not an appropriate topic. It's not directly relevant to the work in relation to new gTLDs. So it's not a GNSO problem. Nor does it directly relate, as your evidence reveals, directly relevant to the sort of current work of the ccTLDs. It's not directly relevant to the GAC. So no one organization is the proper place for a thing that looks at this particular relationship and the ending of this particular relationship with the United States government. So, for that reason, the most flexible mechanism we have in ICANN is a President's Strategy Committee. And we've used that, for example, in the early days when we had to reach across a wide number of communities to develop the first budget. There was a presidential advisory committee there. And I think Paul can help me, there's a number of other ones that are relevant. For example, on IDNs, where there's work that crosses boundaries. So for those reasons, a President's Strategy Committee. Second question was, referenced the experts group. This has been a matter of considerable debate by members of the PSC. We knew we needed help from experts on a number of ways, but we weren't quite sure how to form this in a way that wasn't just, in the end, another committee, and stood as, in effect, a block between community participation and the PSC itself. What we have now resolved to do is form task-specific expert groups. And we are in the process of working on the very first one of those, which deals with the problems of the appeal. I think of them as the appeal mechanisms inside ICANN. We have three major ways for someone who is dissatisfied to challenge a decision. There's independent review, there's a request for the ombudsman to intervene, and there's a request for reconsideration. We've been of the view for some time that those mechanisms had problems with them. My own personal view is that they are all very, very limited and extremely defensive from ICANN's perspective. Perhaps not so much the ombudsman. And at the board retreat in May of last year, we agreed that we would review those mechanisms. Now, the trouble with that has been that the board review process -- and those of you who know that the bylaws require us to review every entity every three years -- we are awash with structural review. And we have not been handling it terribly well until recently. And the best example of that is the way we started without a proper process in mind and tackled the most complicated, which was the GNSO. And as a consequence, the GNSO review has now been running for close to three years. And just as we get into implementation phase, it will be time to do it again. And members of staff can help me, but we currently have reviews going into the RSSAC, the SSAC, we're about to start the ccNSO. The board itself is being reviewed. So none of those things are -- so fitting in the review of the appeal mechanisms is going to take a long time. What the PSC has done is grafted on top of those mechanisms two additional mechanisms. We've grafted on the suggestion that there should be a process for a decision to be recalled for a renewed look by the board that's different from the existing reconsideration, which is very narrow. There should be a way of saying, board, you've got this wrong. Go and do it again. And then there's a final mechanism which I think Becky Burr and others have described accurately as pretty much the nuclear option, which is, if you have gone through all four of these other mechanisms, if you've gotten no joy from reconsideration or appeal, ombudsman and you've asked the board to look at it again, then it's time to get a new board. Now, the question was expert advisory groups. We are in the process now of forming an expert advisory group to deal with that particular issue. What we want to do is take the three appeal mechanisms inside ICANN -- ombudsman, review, reconsideration -- and link those to the two that the PSC has done and do a comprehensive look at how do people challenge decisions inside ICANN. Let's build a fresh set of mechanisms. Let's keep what we've got that's good and working and let's fix the ones that aren't. So we are going to form an expert Advisory Group in relation to that single topic. And what we are thinking we'll probably do is have individual expert advisory groups in relation to some of the other ones. So long answer, Chris, but, you know, all of these things have many, many layers and many, many things behind them. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I just noticed another member of the President's Strategy Committee is here. Marilyn, can you stand up and suffer the indignity of being introduced. Marilyn Cade, ladies and gentlemen, another member of the PSC. And if I have missed anybody, introduce yourself. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. Cheryl. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Thanks, Patrick. Our community, obviously, as what we believe is one of the integral parts of the bottom-up process is delighted particularly with this venue and what's happening, but also with the fact that we have had both individual members, specifically, the chair of NA RALO, very much involved in the process by putting comments in, and seven of our ALAC members, and again, quite specifically, from the Executive Committee, involved in some of the regional improving institutional confidence workshops. We've also had, and this is our first bite at a group activity, what was an all-too-short, but I think quite productive meeting yesterday with a couple of members of the PSC. So we've really just got our juices going on this. I think it's one of those examples of if we were really concerned about it, we would be yelling rather loudly a lot earlier. But there are some drill-down issues. There are some points, and I am not going to steal the thunder of those I know are probably going to use the mic later by listing them here. Because yesterday I think Marilyn was actually taking a speaker's list from around the table. So I am not going to bite into any of that now. But if we had to prioritize our concerns not in terms of worries but in terms of, well, this is important or this is equally important, we would not be putting capture quite at the top. Clearly we still think that internationalization from a global perspective is enormously important. The capture and need for oversight comes in a fraction below but very, very close second. The concepts of accountability, efficiency, reporting back, they are necessary tools, but if we don't get the others write, bluhhh. The idea that we're not having sufficient time to put public comments in, I actually think we are printing T-shirts to wear soon, from ALAC point of view, because at-large has an enormous difficulty in the short 30 to even 45-day period, and I am not even going into the field of translation, to get information, particularly of a complex nature, which is not in simple language -- I am not even going to mention only in English, because we are doing better on that -- out to our communities, and then back again. So anything that goes towards drip feeding us advanced knowledge, our own ability to say this is being forecasted, therefore we can do briefings, we are very capable of working out what our community's needs are, but we aren't capable of time managing very large things coming in in very close proximity to each other. You won't be surprised to hear that is a particularly high concern; almost an encompassing one. So I won't take any more time than that, but I will fill in if other people don't later. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you, Cheryl. And we will open the microphones to more comments from the floor. Peter, do you want to respond to any of those quickly? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: There is no particular question there, but what I can say is I understand completely the complaint in relation to the filing of submissions. And perhaps the point you didn't make that comes out equally as well from that, and that is the responses. We do not deal well, I think, with the way people make submissions and then don't hear back. People complain -- and I have been on the other side of the microphone on the other end of the submissions process. People file submissions and then there's a decision comes out and they don't know why a decision was made in opposition to their submission. This is a comment we hear all the time. What I can say is that we understand the problem. The board is about to form a new committee which will be dealing with this issue rather specifically. We are in the process, and on Friday probably will form the board's committee on public participation. And that has two major strands likely to emerge in its charter. One of them relates to meetings. Why do we have meetings? What has to happen at meetings? It is an important element of public participation. But the other is the online comments and public submission process. We really, really have to work out a way of dealing with this. Nobody else does it like ICANN. There is no other multi-national, global, bottom-up transparent organization that operates the way we do. We have got top marks from international reviewers auditing our transparency processes. But we have got to do a lot better. So all I can say is, we hear that, and we know that 30 days for responding is really difficult, especially with multiple translations. And then we also know that once you have gone to all that work, you want to know what's happened to your submission. And so I want to say we are sympathetic and we are working on it. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. Janis from the GAC perspective. >>JANIS KARKLINS: So what I can say that, for the GAC, the -- improving institutional confidence and providing input to the PSC report and work of President's Strategy Committee is very important issue. It is very high on our agenda, and we have been discussing this issue since Paris meeting, intersessionally. We had the session yesterday. And we are working to finalize our input to the President's Strategy Committee report, as we promised in Paris. And I hope that we will be able to do that and present this report on Thursday morning. Just a few highlights from our discussion. First and foremost the five major themes identified by the President's Strategy Committee, in our view, represent the shared objectives of the community. And we believe that the community itself should be deeply involved in further developing of these themes and reaching common understanding. Because this project is not the board's project, this project is not a President's Strategy Committee project, but that is ICANN community project. And only community, as such, can define the future shape of this multistakeholder organization. In our view, accountability, accountability of all actors at all stages of policy development process is something which is at the core of legitimacy of ICANN. And the respect of due process is something very essential to this organization. Important aspect of internationalization, which has been, as I remember, at the very core of discussion on Internet governance during World Summit on Information Society, also is something that we need to evaluate very carefully, and we certainly need to understand and design the shape and also understand what would be the functionality of those, potentially, offices in different jurisdictions, as they say. So certainly we expect more information and more reflection on this subject. And now, maybe, about timing. As I said, we believe that this is not subject for the rush. Although we clearly understand that the deadline is September 2009, the time of expiration of Joint Project Agreement, but nevertheless, we think that we would clearly prefer if, after this initial analysis phase, which will be concluded in December, we would maybe have a little bit longer design period where Mexico meeting would be considered as an intermediate, in order to assess progress on this common design of the project and the shape of this endeavor. And the implementation phase would start immediately after the design phase, which we see would end in June with the summer meeting of ICANN. It is also linked to certain political developments in the world. And we would prefer that all relevant actors would be properly involved in the process. And this timetable I think would suit the GAC the best. And the GAC input will be more considered than it would be if we would rush. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Great. Thanks, Janis. Peter, just conscious of time, if you have got any quick replies there? Terrific. Thank you. Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. So when this session was first put on, I had a viewpoint very similar to Chris's, is that the GNSO council has not been looking at the PSC from a policy perspective at all. In fact, in terms of our conversations on it, I don't -- Peter said it wasn't at the top of his agenda until yesterday, when I had to get some comments together -- I mean Chris. Sorry. Forgive me. They have both got jackets on. Until yesterday when I had to put it on an agenda so that we could figure out what comments I would be able to make, it hadn't been on our agenda. But then a wise person pointed out to me that perhaps we weren't talking about it as policy, but this whole three years of restructuring that we have been going through for accountability, for working groups that allow people to get involved earlier, for more transparency in what we're doing, in terms of responding to comments. And I don't by any means say that we have gotten to the point where we should get, but we had a milestone in that we got a comment and actually changed one of our recommendations based upon that comment. Now, that was only a single event, and that's one that needs to be repeated, but basically, so as policy within the GNSO council, I don't think we have given it any thought at all. Certainly, I'm sure the constituencies have. The people in the constituencies probably have talked about it a lot. But in terms of practice, in terms of restructuring, in terms of reading what it says, and the board giving us feedback in terms of how we restructure, I think we are very involved at it, but at a very, very different level. In terms of pointing out things that might be of concern, since I did have that one little meeting to sort of say what kind of things would concern us, I think the questions of what are realistic options for accountability. You know, it's a very important topic. It affects us. What are the options for our own accountability? What are the options for board accountability? Are there options somewhere between the nuclear option and what we have now? And how reasonable and practical is that? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I hope so. >>AVRI DORIA: You hope so. Me, too. And I guess the other comment that came up was sort of a need for sort of elaboration and further detail on some of the plans, and then a hope for real community involvement. Not just comment, but a real community involvement in the implementation process. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks for that, Avri. Peter, again, any quick replies before we move to the floor? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: (Shakes head.) >>PATRICK SHARRY: Terrific. Now, the reason for working on the white boards as we're going is not so you can see how poor my handwriting is, but rather so we keep a bit of a running tally of the sorts of questions we are generating. That will have many purposes. One is that we can take this away and work with it moving forward. The other is I hope that we can limit the need for duplicate questions from the floor. Because once we have got a question up there and we acknowledge that it's up there, then we probably only need to say it once. So I'll keep a tally as we go with the questions from the floor. And at the end of that, we'll then have a total list. Sébastien, I will come to you in just a moment. The way the questions will work, as it has been earlier in the day, we have four mic handlers, basically one for each bank of seats here. They have a little way of letting us know they have somebody ready to make a comment. So the first one for this row here, Sébastien, if you will pop your hand up there. Thank you. I will come to you in just a moment. Another one over there, and there and there. That's very good. We will keep the process going. We will begin on the assumption that we are all adults and we will self-regulate to some extent. We would like to keep the typing of each question as short as possible, so we can fit in as many questions as we can. Nominally, if you can think of a two- to three-minute time frame as your maximum, that would be great. In case things get a little out of hand, we start to run out of time, our next option is to put a little clock up on the screen there so that we can monitor the time more carefully. And if that doesn't work, the clock has a little dinger so we can actually call you to order. Sébastien, if you would like to be the first question. A mic handler for this. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Patrick, you missed internationalization, and I shall never forgive you if you don't put that up in your ALAC. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: That's fine I'll pop that back up. Thank you. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you very much. Sébastien Bachollet. I am vice chair of ALAC. And my first part was to ask Patrick to add internationalization as the first point that ALAC, at-large people wanted to put on top of the priority. The question about confidence, I wanted to make this -- to thank you, because one way to be more confident with ICANN is exactly what you are doing here, this trans-organization meeting. It's one of the first -- it's one important step to add confidence in each other. And I am not sure if it's institutionalized or not, but it's a very good step ahead of us. My second point is that internationalization may say a lot of things for different people, and it's important to have an idea what we want to say is that it's to have more countries or more people from each countries, if we want to have more language, if we want to have more bureau in different continents and so on. Then yes, one time we will need some answer from the PSC work. And I would like to add that it's also important to have a different way of discussion of consultation. Yesterday, I want to thank the two or three people from the PSC who came to ALAC and at-large people to discuss, because I think it was really very interesting. I hope it was interesting for the PSC people, too. But it's also one way to interact. And you can't say that it was ten people or 20 people or it was five lines on the Wiki or whatever. But it was one of the best interaction on that subject I personally attend or I read. And I think we need to multiply the way of interaction, and not saying that there are just 20 people who write something on the option public list, but they were doing that in other forms. Thank you very much. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you very much Sébastien. Just as the microphone is being passed there, before you speak, if you could just say your name and whatever affiliation you think is reasonable. And that will help us learn who each other are as we go. >>KEN STUBBS: Thank you, Patrick. My name is Ken Stubbs. I have been involved in the ICANN process since 1997. Patrick, if you can refocus the camera back on your first board there, I would like to make a couple of comments. I'm quite concerned about the progress that we're making in this area. And I think the concern can be expressed by the comments that have been made so far. First of all, Chris indicated that the ccNSO has not made this, at this point in time, a high priority. There are other issues that they are dealing with. I believe that Avri indicated that for all intents and purposes, this is not an issue that the council has had at the top of its mind as well. I'm very concerned about moving forward on the time line that we're talking about for a series of reasons. First of all, ICANN is undergoing some significant changes right now that, if completed even close to the time line, will barely take it to September. The restructuring modifications and changes that may occur in the composition of the board based on the studies. So there's an awful lot on our plate right now, number one. Number two, I think we delude ourselves if we don't realize that the world is going through some major changes right now. And that in the next eight to 12 months, it's going to be very easy for many of us to be distracted. And it's going to be very difficult to keep our eye on the ball. So I think we're naive not to consider the political, economic environment that we operate in. Also, I'm very concerned because I have not seen from anyone in the legal community a more clear outline as to exactly what the legal impacts that could occur. I'm talking about contractually, domicile. I mean, I don't understand how a lot of these future activities will operate. And I'm not speaking with respect to protection of intellectual property interests and so forth. I'm sure there are people who have a much better handle on that. I am much more concerned about the overall contractual interests. Thank you very much. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Great. Thanks, Ken. We have got one down there, and while that microphone is arriving, I am just going to quickly turn to the top table to see if there are any quick comments. That's fine. Thank you. Down the back there. >> (Saying name) from AfNIC dot FR's registry. I would like to echo this comment and make a suggestion. Echoing this comment, I would like to ask the committee to think and ponder about what is going on in the world right now, especially with regards to the way public authorities and citizens see the respective roles of governments and of private sector regarding everything that's going on in the financial sector. And I think it's an important new element to be taken into account in whatever reflection about the Internet governance and, of course, ICANN's role. That was my comment. A suggestion now. I think the PSC has done a very thorough job on the notion of capture, which is extremely important. However, I think this job could be further developed and elaborated on just by inspiring itself from what is expected from registrars and registries along the lines of disaster recovery processes and everything about contingency plans. I think if ICANN wants to improve institutional confidence, it has to demonstrate that it has a contingency plan for every type of capture scenario that has been developed by the committee. And my suggestion would be that such approach is further elaborated on in the future. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. We have one over there. And then we'll come to in the middle there. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Hello, is this working? Good. Hello, my name is Eric Brunner Williams, and I am from CORE. And this isn't intended as a trick question, but could the person from the PSO hold up their hand. No one there. How about the person from the ASO, renamed the NRO. Again, nobody is there. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Eric, one of our committee members is from the ASO. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Right, but not up -- The point I am attempting to make is the confidence I have in the institution is not increased by the disappearance of one of the original three members of the PSO nor by the diminution in its role of a second of the three original members. So like Ken, I have been involved in this since '97, since day zero and possibly before. I'm concerned about the -- the transformation of the institution that is losing contact with portions of the -- of its technical basis, and becoming entirely -- well, losing site of those two original portions of the tryout that made this a stable stool. Thank you very much. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. Vanda, please. >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Vanda Scartezini, vice chair of ALAC involved with ICANN since 2000. Well, my point is -- well, one of those is internationalization, Sébastien raised, it was just forget, but one point that I consider very important is we have time till September to try and improve the model, the multistakeholder model that is a kind of contribution from ICANN to the whole world. And it's not yet working very well because of the side of the community, the at-large community, the users in some way is not well represented. And in some way not the governance, because we have not enough governance with the world in this way because most often they're not able to participate and that is something that I would like to raise and make sure that when we make the step forward, we have this solid model working much better than now. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Vanda. Number three and then we'll come to the other person in the middle there. JONATHAN ZUCK: Yes, my name is Jonathan Zuck. I'm from the Association for Competitive Technology, and I guess I have a much more general question which is about this exercise itself, improving institutional confidence, so there's a bunch of subquestions but hopefully if results in one larger question which is what exactly we're trying to accomplish. The name in itself seems to imply there's a lack of institutional confidence and I'm wondering whose confidence is being sought and what were the measures of that lack of confidence. I'm interested in trying to figure out what would represent the success in improving institutional confidence and if it hasn't been engineered to prevent failure who represents a failure in improving institutional confidence and what are the implications and ramifications of that failure. This is tied specifically to the inspirations of JPA. We may want to understand what role the JPA is playing in ICANN. What we'd be giving up in that expiration, that JPA contends that there is a failure to improving institutional confidence. But very general question, but whose confidence, how do we measure whether or not we've improved this, and what do we if we don't succeed in that deadline to gain the confidence that we're seeking. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. That's a question that might be worth a quick response either from Peter or another member of the PSC in the audience. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: As you said, a lot of questions. Let me just pick up the one you said, what is the current role of the JPA and what if it's expiring. I'm on record, I think, in the letter that I wrote that was tabled in the term review which makes it quite clear that I think the ICANN perspective of that is that that's the end of a series of institution-building phases that started in 1998. The original MoU and its developments read a little bit like a venture capitalist list of requirements. If we build this organization to look after these crucial infrastructure resources, it has to have the following features. It's got to be global, it's got to be multinational, there's all that list of things that came out of the white paper which was a set of principles and ideas and then a set of rules and structural drawings and what -- what our position or what my position is, is that those things are now in place. We now have a large and functioning governmental Advisory Committee. When we started, we didn't have very many governments participating and they may be in the wrong parts of government and so on. That's changed. I led for a long-time a near rebellion by the ccTLDs against the rules and structures of ICANN because they were inappropriate for the ccTLDs. That's now changed and the relationship with ccTLDs is now a very strong one and I think there are 44 ccTLDs that have signed agreements and a very much larger number of ccTLD managers inside ccNSO. And so if you go through the various entities, the position has changed dramatically from ten years ago when there was simply a board and a set of bylaws. There now is. This institution that you -- that we are all part of that actually does all these jobs, it manages all these things and it does it with the support of the community. So our position is that the requirement for a set of rules that say you have to have relationships with the ccTLDs, you've got to have relationships with the root servers, all those original requirements in the JPA we say are now met. The board has taken over the responsibility for setting those criteria. Responsibility shifted from an MoU dictated by one party to a joint party agreement and now the board of ICANN is responsible for -- in its bottom-up way, for setting a set of responsibilities. So that's our position. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. And Paul, did you want to respond at this time as well? We can just get a microphone to Paul Levins, thank you. >>PAUL LEVINS: Am I -- oh, I am on. Just an addition, as well. The -- Jonathan, thanks for the question. Improving institutional confidence. There is, in fact, a very direct link to the midterm review. Because the terminology used by the Department of Commerce, information, the NTIA in that review was we want to develop confidence in the organization by the stakeholders, institutional confidence in those areas, and so it's a very direct and purposeful link to that process because there were a number of people in that midterm review process that certainly said positive things about the organization that also said that there were still some things that needed to be done before they felt they had complete confidence in it and as those of you who have read both the chairman's initial submission and then the follow-up submission which was an attempt at providing feedback, if you like, on the midterm review comments will remember that it, in fact, makes that point that -- two points, in fact. Firstly, there was an idea that came from the whole notion of it to go to the PSC was, in fact, an idea put forward by the Canadian government in one of its submissions, originally, and also those submissions also spoke to the idea that -- particularly the first one, that there wouldn't be some kind of confidence nirvana, if I can put it that way, the challenge for the organization was always going to be, is always going to be, not how high did you jump this time, but -- this time around in a review, but how well have you performed a set of responsibilities that should always be your remit, how well have you -- and what confidence has the organization and stakeholders got in the way it performs those responsibilities. >> Your contention of the act of having (speaker off microphone). >>PATRICK SHARRY: Microphone. >> I'm sorry, I don't mean to monopolize it. But is it then your contention that the mere act of having a consultation surrounding institutional confidence constitutes sufficient activity on the part of ICANN to be considered institutional confidence minus some confidence nirvana, as you -- as you put it? >>PAUL LEVINS: I won't pretend to speak on behalf of the committee but no, I don't think it's a suggestion that somehow you wrap everything up in a nice, neat box with a ribbon around it and based on the consultation if you like was the process that led to the conference and so therefore we -- but it is a process of saying how realistic -- what are the things that need to be done in order for the organization to have a level of confidence that people can adequately express at the end of the JPA that they believe the JPA can successfully conclude. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Paul. We'll come back to that very patient gentleman in the front there and then I've got 1, 3, and 4. >>EVERTON LUCERO: Thank you. I'm Everton Lucero, I'm vice chairman of the GAC and I'm representing Brazil in the GAC. First of all, I would like to congratulate the chairpersons of the different ACs and SOs for holding this joint session which I think is extremely important at this moment of transition that we're going in. And I hope that this will be an initial exercise that will be further developed. I know perhaps we need to work a little bit more on the format. I don't think this session is intended to be similar to the open mic sessions that we already had. But I think it's extremely useful not only to the exchange of views and debate but also to improving the decision-making process of ICANN as a whole instead of having one PDP and GNSO and PDP and ccNSO and another at ALAC and GAC, why don't we have one PDP for ICANN that everybody knows and everybody participates in knowing the process as well. And then once this new process is observed it will really be reflected as a consensus basis in the organization. But the comment I'd like to make and very briefly is more of a philosophical nature. And I would like to ask you to allow me to be provocative now. Anytime of thanks significance like the one that we are doing now is also a time to question the basis of the very existence of any structure or organization, and so it may lead us to ask the reason why ICANN exists in the first place. Is it to allow for a few people to make a lot of money out of there selling the domain names, is it to empower citizens of the world to express themselves toward the Internet or to use the domain name system. So I think there are a variety of options and we need to be clear about that. And that has to be reflected in the decision-making process. How is ICANN taking care of the representation of registrants in this process? Considering that they are the ones who really pay for the existence of this organization, how are they being taken care of, we might even assume that they are actually not only shareholder -- stakeholders but shareholders of this organization. If we are talking about capture, I am a bit worried about the fact that those who make money out of this also make the rules. I think that's capture, I think that's something that we need to work on. I am very glad that at this very open session I am able to express these Frank opinions to contribute to that and I thank you very much for it. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. No. 1. >>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you. I'm Ayesha Hassan from the International Chamber of Commerce, I manage ICC's e-business, IT and Telecoms Commission and I'm also a member of the BC. As Avri mentioned, some of the BC members and other members of the GNSO group did submit contributions to the consultation and I wanted to just highlight that ICC and its members have contributed, again, to this next round of consultations. And one of the high priorities is to see improved representation of broader business interests in, towards the end of strengthening the multistakeholder model. And I appreciate the recognition of a couple of the comments in terms of the listing of experts that would be hopefully identified soon who would be helping the PSC on certain issues and I look forward to hearing who those experts are and for the different issue groups. I know that would be helpful. A second point to the public comment period. To elaborate on the point that was well taken that the short time frames are very difficult and they don't allow for translation. It also links to bringing in broader business perspectives and experience to these consultation processes and this one in particular. So I would appreciate attention to that. My last point was a question. I would appreciate hearing some information about the elaboration that we can expect to know which elements of these documents and what the schedule of elaboration would be across-the-board many of the contributions asked for elaboration on certain issues and many of them are being outlined here so that would be helpful here. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Ayesha, if I can just clarify that last point. So if we had a clearer schedule, it would enable all of us to contribute more appropriately and plan our contribution, is that the point there? >>AYESHA HASSAN: That would be one of them. Also, there were a few of the sections where there was a distinct call for elaboration. And it would be helpful to understand when we would hear about that information. Thanks. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Terrific. Thank you. If we can go to 3 and then 4. We have a few more hands. There's one there and a couple over there. >>CHUCK GOMES: Chuck Gomes speaking as an individual from the GNSO. Let me first give a couple of points of context for my question. From the very beginning, one of the limitations of enforcement mechanisms within the registry/registrar world has been the fact that the only enforcement mechanism we had was what is often referred to as a nuclear option, just totally cancel the agreement with no intermediate steps. The second point of context is what I think we all believe, and that is that ICANN's primary mission is security and stability. In the context of those two things, I am really curious -- and this surprised me when I first read it -- from the President's Strategy Committee -- why the option for review of ICANN decisions of firing the entire board was put on there. It's the same problem that we've experienced in other areas of the ICANN world, and it certainly seems like it could create significant instability. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Chuck. If we can go to the microphone over there, and then we'll come to that side over there next. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Can I just help Chuck? Chuck, let me just answer that. Remember that the PSC recommends two mechanisms. And they are intended to sit on top of three other mechanisms. The first mechanism recommended was a -- just a complete recall of a decision to the board, not reconsideration as it's currently limited, and not -- just, guys, you got this wrong. Do it again. 'Cause there isn't -- at the moment, there isn't that. And the final one was, if -- on the theory that if you've used all of the currently available mechanisms and you still can't get this right, most organizations have a way of voting no confidence in their board. And ICANN doesn't have one. So we need some kind of a mechanism. And the discussion that we had led us to believe that it would be worse if we had a mechanism for one group to fire one or two directors. The choice for us was a mechanism for recalling the entire board or individual directors, and for reasons which you and I can discuss at a later date, we've opted for, no, better to get them all gone. You can always reappoint the ones that you like under the new appointment mechanism. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. >>JEFF NEUMAN: I'm Jeff Neuman with gTLD registry constituency, but I'm speaking as my own comments here. And we have these meetings a lot. And a number of these past meetings, we always discuss about accountability and transparency. And we always talk at a 50,000-foot level. The way I judge accountability and transparency is by looking at a practical level as to the actions that are actually taken. And I have to say that there's a lot of things that I've seen in the last few weeks that kind of go against the whole accountability and transparency. So we can say we're transparent and accountable. But let me bring up a couple of examples. Last night, a report was released on evaluation of the board. Last night. And also in that announcement, which probably most of you have not read, there's a session today to talk about that report. So there's no time to read it. That report talks about a board that should be smaller. It talks about a board that should give more authority to the staff. It talks about a board that should have less information as opposed to more, on all of the substantive issues. And I've only read, really, the executive summary. I have not fully gotten through the whole report. That, to me, is actions. Let me also talk about a budget that's got no signs of ever shrinking. Or forget shrinking, no signs of the growth stopping. You have a new gTLD process that talks about potentially hundreds of millions of dollars coming in, especially if you get the numbers that you guys are talking about. And for me, as a registry, my two areas of accountability for ICANN have been completely stripped out of the draft agreement. The draft agreement that was put out by staff takes out the requirement for ICANN to act in an open and transparent manner. Of course, that wasn't pointed out in the comparison document that was sent around. The other thing that was taken out was the requirement that the -- ICANN treat the registries equitably. And there's been no explanation as to why those things were taken out. In fact, if you look at the registry agreements now, there's absolutely no other obligation for ICANN except to put us into the root. That's it. There's nothing else. And no explanation as to why those aren't in there. Now, I brought this up a couple meetings ago when the draft agreement was posted as a discussion paper. I had said, these are the two fundamental pieces that were taken out. And the answer I got was, "That was inadvertent. We didn't mean it. It will definitely be in the next draft." That was at a public meeting. That is not in the current draft. So we can talk about accountability, we can talk about transparency at the high level. But the way I judge accountability and transparency is in the actual actions. [ Applause ] >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Jeff. Over on that side. I think that's LESLEY. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: If I'm not going to comment on the registry comments, I heard Becky saying similar things this morning. Yes, Kurt and the new gTLD will look at that. Let me pick up on your two points about publishing the report last night was, the reason for that was we wanted to get that report to you long before the Mexico meeting. The consultants were here presenting the report for the first time to the board. As soon as they had done that, it was published. So that's an attempt, as always, to do the best we can -- as soon as it had been presented by the people who had wrote it and they were satisfied, we published it. It happened to be last night. Take the opportunity of inviting people to come at 5:00 if you want to talk about reviewing the board, there will be a presentation from the people who wrote the review into the board explaining what their thinking is. But you can expect most of the discussion about that to take place in the next few months, including in Mexico. I just say I don't understand, Jeff, what a growing budget has anything to do with an issue about transparency or accountability. To my mind, the way the budget operates is a glowing example of ICANN transparency and accountability. We have the most open public session. People come forward and say, "This is what we think you should be doing." And we set about budgeting to go and do it. You tell me all the things you don't want ICANN to do that are currently being done. And if you get community support, we'll take them out of the budget and stop collecting the money to do it. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. Lesley. >> LESLEY COWLEY: Just to respond to Peter's point, I think we're actually going from an extreme of having too little information to having too much at some stage. And certainly those of us who have other day jobs would eventually be looking for summaries. We will go the full cycle. I actually stood up to speak about participation, though, which several people will know is one of my hobbyhorses. In the Nominet response to the PSC, we very much felt that improving participation was key to ICANN's future success both in terms of this particular process, but on an ongoing basis. Good engagement will help reduce the risk of capture. And effective participation is actually fundamental to improved accountability. And given that we were asked to ask questions, I'd like to ask each of the chairs what steps they are taking towards increased participation in their areas. Thank you. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Me, me, me, me, me. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Anyone? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Mexico, summit. All 110 ALSs, and need to recruit between now and then, invited. Already under -- between 70 and 80 doing the homework to go there. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you, Cheryl. Any other responses from the top table? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I have a very simple response, which is that LESLEY knows very well the answer to that because she's driving that in the ccNSO. But we are working very hard on participation. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Chris. Okay. Let's go to there. There's a request for the microphone there as well. Just before you start, can I just check for other hands? You've got -- there's another one there. Sorry. Okay. >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: Okay. My name is Wolfgang Kleinwächter. I'm from the University of Aarhus. And I have more an observation or a comment and not a question. I think one of the big achievements of ICANN is that ICANN is pioneering the multistakeholder principle. And this was really new ten years ago, totally new. Then in the whole WSIS process, people started to understand this, and the big compromise in WSIS was, okay, multistakeholderism is the answer to the battle that took place before that. But everybody uses now the term "multistakeholderism." But we have only little understanding what does it really mean. It means we are still exploring the meaning of "multistakeholderism." And so far, I think it's a great step forward that we have the various stakeholders now on one table. Because the missing point what I see is next to the -- that everybody celebrates multistakeholderism is, that we have no real practice in place how to interact among the various stakeholders. There are some liaisons, there are some efforts to do that. But, in practice, we are still in silos. So that means we are separated. So the private sector's operating more or less independently. The governments are doing that, and the at large also. That means what is the challenge for the years ahead, and ICANN can continue to pioneer this, is, really, to -- probably not to formalize, but to move forward in developing a practice, you know, how to interact. Multistakeholderism works only if you have -- if you treat the partners as equals in their specific roles. But it means they have different roles, but they are equals. And insofar here, you have to have interested all partners are strong. And let me make as a final comment, and so far I was a little bit surprised when Paul Twomey gave this morning this great report with a lot of achievements, and among the list of the 15 points, there was no single point for the at large. So probably there was -- was a good signal, because it says we have 15 problems, at large is not a problem at the moment. There is no space to cover this. But I would think, you know, there is at large summit planned for Mexico next year. So it's a big issue, and we know that at large is the weakest point in ICANN's multistakeholder model. And we have to discuss this more in detail how to strengthen this group, because only if all three partners are strong, then ICANN will really be ready for more independence, because then it will get the trust and the confidence of the broader international community from all stakeholder groups. Thank you very much. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Wolfgang. We'll go to the gentleman there next. We have one, two, and three. And I think that will take us to the end of our time. Please. >> Thank you, Steve Delbianco with net choice, a member of the business constituency. One of the five elements in the improving institutional confidence is the notion of capture. And I would truly like the PSC and those of the members of the board that are present to focus on an element of capture that I believe has been ignored. And that's the element of capture from external forces to ICANN, not from capture by folks inside of ICANN. I'm speaking specifically of things that we've heard at the Internet Governance Forum, where nations have been encouraging the United Nations and its arm to assert control of critical Internet resources. And that has come up for the last two years at the Internet Governance Forum, and it will undoubtedly be part of the agenda of the IGF that's going to be held in India in December. And having brought it up before, I'm dismayed that external capture never makes it to the discussion of capture. But, more importantly, if ICANN is negotiating with these nations to soften their opposition, if ICANN is telling them something to manage that risk, tell us, be transparent about promises that are being made to governments that want to take over ICANN. And then in my comments on the institutional confidence in October, I reiterated one other aspect of external capture that I also believe is being ignored. And it's an even easier capture, because it's quite a bit of work to take over the mechanism and the bureaucracy of an organization as complex as ICANN. Far better to just steal the show. Far better to just take what it is you want without capturing the organization. And I believe we have a perfect example of that, it keys off something Peter said this morning where he said, imagine a world where, let's say, the 200 million Arabic users would have one domain they could use for Arabic. So the notion we are bringing up is a vision for having IDN domains. And yet what we've seen is the fast-track that we have designed for IDNs is designed exclusively for the ccTLDs, exclusively for the government-controlled domains. Whereas any other IDN has got to wait in line with the big application process, which won't even begin, we are told, until this time next year, when the applications will be accepted. That was Kurt's report. And then I don't think anyone in this room is going to bet that we'll see any gTLD IDNs until 2011. So that means that governments controlling ccTLDs will have all of the IDN space for as much as a year or more. And that is not the commitment that we made. >>PATRICK SHARRY: I'm just going to stop you there, because after the break, we'll come to more -- >> I realize that it cuts over both. But it gets to the point of capture. And if the PSC and the board actually disagree, say so. But don't ignore this risk that we have brought up time and time again. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Let me just say in answer, you misunderstand the fast track. You misunderstand. And Chris and I can talk to you about it afterwards. The ccTLD fast track is not ahead of other IDN applications. It's ahead of other CC IDN applications. So we can sort that out. There is -- you're worrying about something that doesn't exist. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Peter. We've got one over there. Ken. Thank you. >> Yeah, just. >>KEN STUBBS: Just a quick word of advice to ICANN. At this point in time, most of the consultations that I have seen or heard on this process have been pretty much top-down ICANN telling the world how good they're progressing. At the same point in time, when I go back to the board that you have right behind you there, Patrick, I see that the CCs -- not a high priority. The GNSO, we've hardly talked about it. All I'm saying is, the bodies that operate within ICANN need to be on the same page as the message. So my word of advice to ICANN is, take your message back down to the various SOs, develop support in that area, so that you can come back next spring or next summer and you can say, "Here's how we're doing, and here are the SOs lined up behind us, backing us." Because in the long run, if you don't, you're going to be dealing with comments that refer -- that were referred to by Paul Levins that were made to ICANN by the Department of Commerce and so forth. But that's an extremely important message. You guys are sending two separate messages, one from the management and the board, and the other one from the participating organizations. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thanks, Ken. I think we had one more in that bank over there. >>STEVE METALITZ: Yes, thank you, Steve Metalitz, speaking on behalf of the coalition for online accountability, which has submitted online comments on this proceeding. And the question that I would like to have added to the list is, what is the status of the affirmation of responsibilities that the board adopted in 2006 and that was annexed to the Joint Program Agreement? What will be its status if the JPA expires? And how does that relate to what is -- what -- the PSC initiative? Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. Bertrand. Do you have a microphone? Can we have a microphone there, please. Stand up, Bertrand, please. And not in any pointed way, but I'd like to pay attention to the fact that we are right on time. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: I will be very short. I want to make two points. The first one is that I think there is an overarching concern about continuing this discussion and continuing it in a format that involves everybody, just to say that there will be a session -- a second phase somehow on Thursday, which will be a very brief session, but that will allow the different communities to come back with further discussions that they have had among themselves, that's the first point. The second point is more a topical point. Peter was talking about the timeline and the moving towards implementation plan. I just want to make one point on how it's done on the new gTLD. Implementation plans are somehow an all-or-nothing type of approach by ICANN. You get the policy development, and then, suddenly, pssst, it goes into the implementation phase, and the whole implementation becomes the burden of the staff alone. I'm wondering whether, in the case of the -- this process, we shouldn't be talking about a distinction between implementation guidelines, which is basically the design phase that we were talking about, and implementation per se, in the end, which we'll go into more detail. I just want to throw this in the debate. And that's all. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you, Bertrand. I believe I've overlooked someone in the back. If they promise to be very, very brief, we'll take one quick comment. >> Thank you very much. My name is Fuatai Purcell, from Samoa. I just want to make an observation which directly relates to the nature of my own country, a small island developing state. A very good point was pointed out by Avri, and that is getting involved. But in terms of our small island countries, which are so far away from everybody else, we need the awareness and also to increase the level of understanding for us to be involved in this process. As we all know, a lot of countries are not taking part in the ICANN process. So how can ICANN try to improve the confidence of the community if some of the countries, especially governments, are not involved? I would like to say that I thank ICANN for the fellowship program, because without that, I wouldn't be here and learning so much. I have listened carefully to the presentations as well as the input from other people. My last point is, during Tunis 2005, I sent an e-mail to the secretary of ICANN, because I want to be part -- or take part in GAC. There have been a lot of e-mails that were going to and fro. But up until now, I gave up. So that is one of my expected outcomes of attending today's meeting. And also to remind ICANN that paragraph 16 of the WSIS declaration states, we shall pay special attention to small island developing states. Thank you. >>PATRICK SHARRY: Thank you. We're now going to take a break. There will be coffee and some form of sweet carbohydrate outside for those who wish to partake of that. We're going to reconvene at 4:00, 1600. And when we come back, we're going to speak about new gTLDs, IDN ccTLDs, and all the issues around that. Can I suggest that when you come back in, for the sake of the many of us in the audience for whom English is not our first language, that we take the headsets for translation and that we be prepared to use those in the second session that we have today. Please, enjoy your break. We'll see you again at 4:00. Thank you.