World Wide Alliance of Top Level Domain-names

ccTLD Constituency Meeting in Stockholm

Executive Summary of ccTLD Stockholm Meeting on 31 May and 1 June 2001

Chaired by Fay Howard (European AdCom)
Co-chaired by BK Kim (ccTLD Secretariat)

Written by Abhisak Chulya and Seung Yeon Yoo

Meeting started at 9:00 AM with 41 ccTLD managers and 130 total participants.
Donation at the gate: 700 Francs, 200 Swiss Francs, 6,300 SEK, and 2,000 USD.

Agenda on 31 May 2001

1. Plenary Session I

1.1 Bylaws

Fay Howard went through the bylaws and took comments on each section. The meeting decided to discuss more in a Working Group the following day.

1.2 ccTLD Permanent Secretariat

1.2.1 Terms of reference

RFP states that the term of the Permanent Secretariat is three years and a few managers thought one year was fit. However, the best interest of Permanent Secretariat.s term is acknowledged as 2 years by most of the managers of ccTLD because it is very important to have a stable operation for the employees. The meeting agreed that the formation of a Permanent Secretariat was an important step forward in supporting the work of the ccTLD's. Chair had set up the following motion for straw poll.

Motion: Two-year term subject to funding after which ccTLD may take an option to review RFP and make a fresh call for proposals.

The meeting accepted the motion with no objection.

The following is the part of the communiqué approved by the meeting.

The ccTLD Constituency meeting in Stockholm on 31 May 2001, approved the establishment of the Permanent ccTLD Secretariat. The new Executive Director, Dr. Byung-Kyu Kim (Korea), and his team, Dr. Abhisak Chulya (Deputy Executive Director - Thailand), Seung Yeon Yoo, and Jeong Hye Choi (both of Korea) will be operating from an Asia-Pacific based office. The new ccTLD Secretariat has a two-year term, subject to availability of funding from ccTLD members.

1.2.2 Funding Issues

As the ccTLD Permanent Secretariat term was approved at the meeting, Fay Howard asked for contributions to ccTLD funding. Sue Leader from .nz contributed $5000 and presented the check to BK Kim. Several other ccTLD managers such as .vi($1,000), .il, .cl, .au, .nl, etc. and possibly .uk and .de also pledged for contributions but would give the final figure after consulting with their organizations.

1.2.3 Work Plan of Secretariat

The new executive director, BK Kim, presented a new work plan for the years FY 01 - FY 02 200106.Secretariat-workplan.ppt.

1.3 Best Practice Guidelines Amendments

There was an effort to amend the Best Practice Document so that all nine ccTLD managers who voted against this document online would agree to support it after amendment. There were many discussions on the fourth paragraph of Best Practice Document (version 4.0) section 3.1 20010310.BestPractice.html. And there were a number of changes suggested and voting took place. The final paragraph agreed by majority is as follow:

In the absence of pre-existing arrangements with the Local Internet Community and consistent with the requirement to best serve the interests of the Local Internet Community, the Administrative Contact should be resident or established in the territory of the ccTLD.

The amended version 4.1 is now posted at 20010601.BestPractice.html.

2. Plenary Session II

2.1 ICANN Contract for Services

Most of the ccTLD managers were worried about the contents of the ICANN contracts. Since we all expected to see some draft agreement from ICANN staff before Stockholm meeting, but there were nothing at all. The meeting agreed to express their disappointment in the communiqué as follows:

The Constituency is disappointed that neither the Board nor Staff have responded to the ccTLD draft contract presented at the Melbourne ICANN meeting in March 2001.

2.2 ICANN Liaison Report by Herbert Vitzthum

Herbert Vitzthum, ICANN ccTLD Liaison, presented the status report and work plan 20010531.ICANN-ccTLDliaison-HerbertVitzthum.ppt related to IANA function and database. He also invited all ccTLD managers and representatives to attend ICANN/IANA Workshop on 2 June 2001 from 9:00 . 11:00 to discuss and improve the function of IANA database.

2.3 DNSO Contribution

The DNSO requested contributions of US$15,371 from ccTLD constituency. The meeting agreed to collect contributions for the DNSO as a part of the contributions to the ccTLD Secretariat funding. Chairperson has called for voting on this motion:

Motion: DNSO invoice goes to ccTLD Secretariat and then Secretariat ask from ccTLDs for donation to Secretariat with option to donate to DNSO.

In favor: 18
Against: 0
Abstain: 6 ________________________________________________________________________________________________

Agenda for 1 June 2001 ccTLD Constituency Meeting

09:00 - 10:00 Invited Speaker: Emmanuel Jolivet, General Counsel of International Court of Arbitration, ICC (International Chamber of Commerce), introduced the world most trusted arbitration system to ccTLDs. He talked about arbitration today to resolve international commercial and business disputes. For more information, please go to www.iccarbitration.org or send email to arb@iccwbo.org.

10:00 - 12:30 Working Groups Session

3.1 Language Diversity in ICANN Working Process

Pilar Luque, Chair of this Working Group, reported that she had estimated the cost of simultaneous language translation into five languages for each ICANN meeting and had been in contact with Stuart Lynn who would present this cost study to ICANN and find way to fund this project. For more information, please go to http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/stockholm/archive/lynn-translation.html.

3.2 Bylaws

Chair asked for volunteers to participate in this Working Group: Fay Howard (Adcom member and leader of this group), Stephan Welzel (.de), Anders Janson (.se), Anthony Bishop (.tv), Bart Boswinkel (.nl), Calvin Browne (co.za), Marianne Wolfsgruber (CENTR), Margarita Valdes (.cl).

3.3 ccSO

Volunteers for this Working Group are Peter de Blanc (.vi), Kilnam Chon (.kr), Chris Disspain (.au), Nigel Roberts (.gg), Peter Dengate Thrush (.nz), Patricio Poblete (.cl), Sabine Dolderer (.de), Marianne Wolfsgruber (CENTR), Xue Hong (.CN), Emil Ancena (.ph), Elisabeth Porteneuve (.fr), Oscar Robles (.mx), Eva Frolich (.se), Saleem (.ae), Abhisak Chulya (ccTLD Sec.), Morton Taragin (.il) and many others. Leader of this group is Peter Dengate Thrush (.nz).

Working Groups from 3.2 and 3.3 would report the outcome in the afternoon Plenary Session III.

14:00 - 18:00 Plenary Session III

4.1 Finance Committee Report (ICANN)

Peter de Blanc (Adcom, .vi), Willie Black (.uk), and Bill Semich (.nu) have come back from the ICANN Budget Group meeting and reported to the meeting of the progress. Please find more information at http://www.icann.org/financials/proposed-budget-14may01.htm and Stuart Lynn's presentation at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/stockholm/archive/lynn-budget.html.

4.2 Outreach Activities

BK Kim reported of all outreach activities in the AP area, including the last Shanghai outreach on 19 May. Abhisak Chulya briefly reported of the Africa Outreach activities on 12 and 15 May. Details are at www.apoutreach.org and www.wwtld.org.

4.3 Working Group Reports

Bylaws Working Group: Fay Howard (Adcom) reported that there were no compromised results from the working group and the discussion will be continued online.

ccSO Working Group: Peter Dengate Thrush reported that the working group agreed in principle to set up a cctld supporting organization (ccSO). Here is the draft of the formation:

Stockholm 1 June 2001

On commencing the process of formation of a cc Support Organisation

see: ccSO-2001stockholm.html

The members of the ccTLD constituency meeting in Stockholm have agreed as follows:

1. The ccTLD members have supported the formation of ICANN and have worked for the past 3 years or so to establish a framework for their participation in the work of ICANN. Since the formation of the DNSO, participation by members has been as a constituency of the DNSO.

2. Almost from the beginning, members have been withdrawing from participation in the activities of the DNSO, despite the continuing participation by our Names Council members. In summary, members have felt that the DNSO structure, composition and work is devoted to gTLD issues and matters of only limited importance to members' interests within ICANN. The absence of Board representation, and the unlikeliness of this occurring, despite the fact that cc domain names constitute approximately one third of all domain names and that members are expected to contribute one third of the ICANN budget is a particular feature of the problems of the current relationship.

3. At the same time, the developing relationship between members and the staff and Board of ICANN has more and more assumed the nature of an independent Support Organisation ("SO"). Members expect to sign individual contracts with ICANN, and have collectively prepared Best Practices, Delegation/Re-Delegation and Contract documents for use of the membership as a whole. We tend to communicate directly with the Board and staff outside of the DNSO and names Council framework. Members have noted the appointment of staff directly responsible for cc affairs.

4. Members have previously noted the call from the staff that we should form a peer organisation. Members note the progress made with regard to the operational co-operation with the IANA function.

5. Beginning in Yokohama, and continuing through meetings in LA and Melbourne, the members have been reviewing the issues associated with the formation of an ccSO. After LA, ccTLD AdCom formed itself into a working group to further this matter. Private discussions have occurred with other constituencies, staff and board members. In general there has been agreement that an SO structure will better serve the mutual interests of ICANN and the members.

6. Accordingly, the members in Stockholm have agreed that the next step in this process is to withdraw the constituency from the DNSO.

7. Members now expect to work with ICANN in resolving the process of departure, and the formation of a new SO under the Bylaws.

8. Members expect to be able to use much of the existing constituency structure and administration, for example the Executive Secretariat, to form the basis of the ccSO.

9. Members expect significant progress to have been made in resolving those matters by the conclusion of the Montevideo meeting, and to have the issue concluded by the LA meeting. On that basis members will not contribute to expenses for DNSO activities after 30 June 2001.

10. Members look forward to working within the new structure to serve the interests of the transfer of management of technical coordination of the internet to ICANN. In the expectation that the Board will provide appropriate resources and directions to the staff to implement the formation of the ccSO. Members expect to continue to make voluntary contributions to funding the ICANN budget as previously.

The voting to accept this formation had been called with the following motion:

Motion: Draft of the process of formation of a cc Support Organization be adopted

In favor: 31
Against: 0
Abstention: 0

It's UNANIMOUS decision by the ccTLD meeting here to withdraw from the DNSO and this is the first time we have had a unanimous vote. After we announced the decision, not only the representatives of most DNSO constituencies such as ISPs, Non-commercial, Business, Registrars and Intellectual Property, do not oppose the new SO, but they also actively endorse its formation.

4.4 Drafting of Communique

Due to the time constraint, Fay Howard announced that the drafting of communiqué would be postponed until tomorrow (2 June 9, 2001) morning.

4.5 GAC Reoprt

GAC had invited ccTLD to its meeting between 4:30 to 5:00 PM. AdCom members, Peter de Blanc, Peter Dengate Thrush, Fay Howard, and Patricio Poblete, were invited to sit up front and reported to the GAC regarding ccSO formation in particular.

Meeting Adjourned.