Communiqué of the ccTLD Constituency, Melbourne 10 March 2001

The ccTLD Constituency met in Melbourne on 9 and 10 March 2001 and noted that 54 ccTLD managers were represented.

Progress was made in these meetings in developing consensus positions on the key issues facing the cc Constituency, namely:

Best Practices

ICANN Contract

Funding

BEST PRACTICES

Members present agreed a final draft of the model ccTLD Best Practices.

(See www.wwtld.org)

After ratification by an on-line vote of the wider constituency, it is intended that this will form the basis of practices referred to in the ICANN contract, subject to amendment for local requirements.

CC MANAGER-ICANN CONTRACT

Since it expressed considerable concern at the 2000 AGM in Los Angeles, the constituency has been pleased to note the Board has provided for a greater amount of staff time on cc issues, particularly the nature of the relationship between cc's and ICANN.

Members of the staff met with cc managers in Hawaii and Geneva in February, and have

participated in presentations and discussions on this topic in Melbourne.

While it is clear that one contract is unlikely to suit all managers, a range of possible relationships is emerging including:

(i) a "legacy" contract, formalising the current relationship, which will be bilateral, between ICANN and the manager, and

(ii) a new contract which will be subject to involvement by the local government (a trilateral arrangement).

A working group has been established to establish the appropriate termination provisions of such contracts.

The constituency observes that many managers have problems having routine changes recorded in the IANA database, such as telephone numbers and changes of server by the same manager. As a result, the IANA database is considerably out of date. In addition, we are uncertain about the accuracy of the information on more than one hundred country codes.

Further, the constituency believes that the number of problems of delegation and re-delegation may have been overstated.

To allow the constituency to apply appropriate resources to these two issues, the constituency requests the Board to instruct the staff to promptly and routinely provide, consistent with observing applicable privacy principles, complete statistics relating to changes requested and made in the database over time.

FUNDING.

Delegates nominated by Europe, Asia Pacific and North America have been appointed by the President to the President's funding task force.

Discussing the issue of total ccTLD contribution, there was consensus that the ccTLD Community should be responsible for developing an allocation mechanism and substantial progress was made towards development of such a mechanism.

While some members of the Constituency believe that until the nature of the relationship, is resolved, commitment to any budget or specific funding model is not possible, there are others that wish to sign agreements before all issues are resolved.

THE G.A.C

The Constituency attended a public session of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) Meeting on 9 March 2001. We welcomed the opportunity to exchange views with the GAC and were pleased to note the encouragement of ICANN Chairman, Vint Cerf, to continue this dialogue.

At this meeting, discussion took place on the options of a bilateral agreement or a trilateral arrangement. In these discussions it became clear that the conclusion of a bilateral agreement between ICANN and a ccTLD manager would not necessarily preclude the transfer to a trilateral arrangement in the future, should it be appropriate.

With this is mind, the Constituency sees no need for ICANN to communicate first with governments before entering into agreements with ccTLD managers and urges ICANN to conclude these agreements as soon as possible.

MONO-LINGUALISM.

The Constituency further discussed the problems for non-English mother tongue speakers to fully participate in the ICANN forum and working processes. We believe that translation of key documents posted for public comment would greatly improve the global participation in ICANN. We further advocate the provision of simultaneous interpretation by interpreters who are suitably trained in Internet terminology.

We recognise that that there is a cost factor in this but request that ICANN investigate these provisions when setting future expenditure budgets, bearing in mind that these services benefit all Internet constituencies and assist with a global outreach programme.

RECORDAL OF THE CHRISTMAS ISLAND CHANGE OF MANAGER

The Constituency learned with regret of the difficulties that the .cx registry is having in requesting ICANN to record the change of manager. We believe that this uncontested transfer is to a new organisation fully meeting the Best Practice guidelines of the Constituency and has the approval of the Local Internet Community including, the locally elected government.

The Constituency is concerned that ICANN staff are reluctant to follow existing policy and appear to be following recommended principles of the GAC which, to our knowledge, are not adopted by the ICANN board. We urge the Board to instruct the staff to make this transfer and to clarify the policies currently being used to avoid inconsistency and the setting of precedence in advance of global consensus on new policy.

We note the absence of a mechanism to break deadlock between parties claiming an interest in the management of a ccTLD. As this increases the risk that ICANN will be sued by one, or more parties in dispute, we call on the Board to develop, in cooperation with the constituency, a dispute resolution mechanism.