“Accountability and Transparency at ICANN: An Independent Review”
The Berkman Center is pleased to announce that the final draft of its independent review of accountability and transparency at ICANN has been posted by the ICANN Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT); see Draft Proposed Recommendations for Public Comment.
From the ATRT's announcement:
The Accountability and Transparency Review Team issues this request for Public Comment on a set of draft proposed Recommendations that it has developed as part of its review of ICANN’s execution of its commitments to accountability and transparency under the Affirmation of Commitments (AoC). The ATRT is required to provide final Recommendations to the ICANN Board no later than December 31, 2010.
The draft proposed recommendations are based on the public comments and inputs received to date, interactions with the ICANN Community at the 37th ICANN meeting in Brussels, interviews, fact-finding and analysis by the ATRT. They are also based on input from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. The Berkman Center was selected to act as an Independent Expert, as provided by the AoC, and was asked by the ATRT to provide its own analysis focusing on the provisions of paragraph 9.1 of the AoC. The Berkman Center conducted primary and secondary research including a set of case studies and a series of interviews to produce a Final Report which is attached as Appendix A. The ATRT considered the recommendations in the Berkman Center’s Final Report as it developed the draft proposed Recommendations that are being published for Public Comment. Translations of the Berkman Center Final Report are being prepared and will be promptly issued.
For the full announcement, with links to the ATRT’s draft proposed recommendations, translations, instructions for commenting, and the Berkman Center’s Final Report, visit http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-03nov10-en.htm.
The Final Report dives deep into a selected set of issues embedded in the broad topic of transparency and accountability at ICANN. A large, coordinated team effort at the Berkman Center was required to achieve this depth and focus in the short time frame available for the study. Thanks to everyone at the Berkman Center – and our collaborators – who contributed long hours to this timely work!
In January 2011, the Berkman Center will make publicly available additional research materials that were gathered in the course of the Center’s production of its Final Report. The page for this project on the Berkman Center website is http://cyber.harvard.edu/research/icann_study.
As always, we welcome your feedback. After the ATRT’s submission of its final report to the ICANN Board, the research team at the Berkman Center looks forward to discussing its work with colleagues and commenters.