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ICANN 54: Addressing the Accountability Question

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The ICANN 54 meeting was held in Dublin from 18-22 October 2015. Attracting around 1,800 attendees, the big topic over the course of the week was the ongoing project to transition stewardship of the IANA functions to the global multistakeholder community.

With the core of the transition proposal itself already having been decided, the focus was on the parallel work to improve ICANN accountability. RIPE community members and RIPE NCC staff contributed to these discussions.

Enhancing ICANN Accountability

The Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG) met several times during the meeting and made significant progress. The Sole Membership model that had been presented in the second CCWG draft report was abandoned and the ICANN Board's Multistakeholder Enforcement Mechanism (MEM) counter-proposal was rejected. The CCWG and ICANN Board reached consensus on a Single Designator (SD) model.

The CCWG is now working on a third draft report based on the SD model which will be published on 15 November for a 35-day public comment period. The final report will be sent to the Chartering Organisations for adoption on 7 January, and will be delivered to the ICANN Board on 22 January. The CCWG has committed to work intensively over the next three months to meet this timeline.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the IANA Numbering Services

One of the key elements of the Internet Number Community's proposal is to replace the current NTIA IANA agreement with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the IANA Numbering Services Operator and the five RIRs. The RIRs met with IANA staff in Dublin who provided feedback on operational aspects of the SLA. A third version of the SLA will be published in early November and the ICANN legal team will be invited to provide its feedback publicly.

IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG)

The ICG met in Dublin to discuss the status of the proposal as well as the status of the ICG after the proposal has been submitted. The group has since published a formal communication.