Notes from ccTLD registries

Dear ccTLDs,

A meeting of ccTLD representatives was held in Berlin on 25th May in
conjunction with ICANN event held 25-27 May 1999. The meeting was attended
by more than 52 participants (a small number did not sign the attendees
list) coming from all 5 of the geographical regions indentified by ICANN.
When taking into consideration that fact that some of those present are
listed as contacts for more than one registry, over 45 ccTLDs were
represented. 

Thanks go to Jorn Grotnes, representing Gambia, who volunteered to take
notes which are pasted below together with a list of participants.

A CENTR document setting out basic principles was used to discuss the
formation and structure of the constituency and this was subsequently
re-written to take into account the consensus reached during the meeting.  

The new document of guiding principles for the ccTLD Constituency (also
pasted below) was submitted to ICANN for consideration in the Board meeting
of 27 May. During this meeting ICANN provisionally recognized the ccTLD
constituency, along with 5 others, until the annual meeting of the Board in
1999. The President of the Corporation is directed to work with the
Constituencies to amend their proposals to addressd deficiencies in the
submissions noted by the Board. 
see http://www.icann.org/berlin/berlin-resolutions.html
Unlike ccTLDs, some constituency had already elected Names Coucnil
representatives
but thes are considered interim and there will be new election of Names
Council representatives following the approval by the Board of such amended
proposal. 

The minutes and the Principles document will be posted to the Constituency
page of CENTR's Website http://www.centr.org/constpage.html. Links to
relevant ICANN documents will also be updated.

Further debate to develop the structure, rules and voting procedures of the
constituency will now be required. In respect of electing Name Council
representatives, it was proposed during the constituency meeting to use
Single Transferable Vote (STV)system whcih we are not all familiar with.
Nigel Roberts of .JE/.GG kindly offered to circulate to the ccTLD list some
explanatory notes on STV.

As a truly global constituency, we need to further develop means of
ensuring that all can participate in meetings by electronic means.  We must
also work on ways to ensure that differing regional cultures are recognised
and non-native English speaking participants are not disadvantaged. After
consultations with Agnes Lee of Singapore, I hope to make some proposals on
these subject in a following Email and would welcome other suggestions.

I will also post some information on the progress of DNSO in respect of
communications  (email and Website) on which Elisabeth Porteneuve of AFNIC
is working.

Apologies for the length of this email and thanks to all who have
contributed to progress so far.

Kiond regards

Fay Howard
CENTR

Meeting, to form ccTLD Constituency of the DNSO

Draft Minutes 

The meeting was opened on the 25th of May 199 at 08:40. Dennis Jennings
(Chairman of CENTR) opened the meeting as local co-chair, and welcomed the
participants (see participant list at the end of this document). The other
meeting co-chairs were Robert Hall (CA ccTLD),  Kilnam Chon, Chairman of
APTLD, (Oscar Robles for LACTLD and Nii Quaynor of Ghana were present for
part  of the meeting only  as they were required to attend the MAC)

Fay Howard of CENTR and Antony van Couvering of IATLD chaired the debate.

All present were asked to introduce themselves and state which registry
they  represented.
52 signed the participants list representing more than 45 regisrties (some
being listed contacts for more than the one registry noted on the sign-up
sheet).  It was noted that there was representation from all 5 of the
geographical regions defined by ICANN.

Appreciation was expressed to all those who had contributed documents and
comment on the formation of the constituency.  The CENTR document,
consisting  of principles agreed by CENTR members and incorporating points
from the  documents of others  was distributed to all present and used as
the working  document for the meeting. The documents contents were
organised after the  original proposal for an agenda as distributed by
e-mail by Fay Howard, but it was new to the participants in its current
form and consisted of proposals for  ccTLD principles.

Clarification was sought on the roles of  CENTR, IANA and ICANN, presumably
in relation to the preparation of the document. Dennis Jennings replied to
the effect that  this was an effort by  CENTR to make a starting point for
discussion.

Point 1.1 was accepted as it simply stated "The ccTLD Constituency of the
Domain Name Supporting Organisation, ('DNSO') is one of the initial
constituencies of the DNSO". 

Point 2.1 stated: "Members of the ccTLD Constituency are those
organisations recorded as managers of an ISO 3166 country code Top Level
Domain Registry in the register maintained by IANA/ICANN.  Organisation may
decline to join the ccTLD Constituency."
NZ asked whether individuals rather than organisations be members.
NU raised the point that a member is a manager of the domain, regardless of
the underlying organisation, as this is dependent on the ccTLD itself and
not addressed in this document. 
UK suggested the point changed to say "organisation/individual"
CH suggested "holder"
US (observer) points out that the issue is to establish a contractual
relationship between ICANN and ccTLD.
MD asked to what extent ICANN can set rules for ccTLDs
It was pointed out that the ccTLD organisation, as it is planned, is a part
of ICANN and therefore rules will be set by ICANN (membership is not
compulsory). The participating ccTLDs will themselves be part of ICANN,
which should not be seen as an external entity.
GG notes that the primary goal for the ccTLD is to have a stable root.
Conclusion: the general consensus was to change the wording of point 2.1 to
reflect the individuality of the ccTLDs organisation

Point 2.2 stated: "Members are represented by an individual, duly
authorised by the ccTLD organisation, usually at a senior level."
No special comments on this point

Point 2.3 stated: Each member shall be identified by ICANN as belonging to
one (and only one) of the global regions defined by ICANN.
This point brought quite a few comments. NU clarified commenting  that of
the 3 selected members of the Naming Council, each should come from one of
five world regions defined by ICANN.
GG suggests that the ccTLD itself can define which region it belongs to.
Dennis suggests that the definition of regions will be worked out between
ccTLDs and ICANN. 
NZ and UK moved to remove the words ICANN from 2.3. The consensus after a
long debate including debating other points that touch upon the issue of
regions (5.2, 5,4) was that the global regions as proposed by ICANN does
not serve a useful purpose in the formation of the
ccTLD constituency and that this entire point should be struck out. The
ccTLD constituency being unique in that there is potentially one vote for
every country and that ensures global representation.

Point 3.1 stated "A Management Council shall manage the affairs of the
ccTLD Constituency."
Dennis explains that this is the remnant of the original ICANN proposal of
internal administration in the ccTLD constituency.
The discussion began with whether such a council is needed for ccTLD. The
consensus was that it is needed, and in addition that it needs to represent
the different groups. Examples mentioned are:
* Language groups, formed by ccTLDs that share a common language
* Regional groups that are already formed or are in the process of being
   formed like the groups for European or Asian/Pacific ccTLDs.
* Groupings of ccTLDs with interests in common.
The consensus is also that this is a "facilitating" council, or
administrative, rather than managerial. The council should distribute
information in a way so that can easily be understood how it affects the
ccTLDs, and that will alert the constituency members that their input is
required. To create a group which will be represented in the council with a
spokesperson 10 ccTLDs must agree to form it. The council will have the
duty to report to the Naming Council of the DNSO, but will not in itself
have decision power.

Point 4.1 stated "The ccTLD Constituency shall operate on the principle
that decisions shall be made on the basis of consensus."
Point 4.2 stated: "The consensus process shall be managed by the Management
Council."
These points were not contested, but the basis for recognising consensus
was discussed at length without reaching a clear conclusion. The voting
mechanism will not be used excessively, and the council may report a split
position (not necessarily a full consensus) to the naming council in DNSO. 

Point 5.1 stated "Two members may nominate (i.e. propose and second) an
individual as a candidate for election to the Names Council.  Candidates
may accept or decline such nomination."
This is accepted without comments.

Point 5.2 stated "Candidates shall be identified with the region of the
proposing member"
This was discussed at length. The consensus was to do away with regional
identification of candidates, and trust the voting process to produce
candidates from the entire ccTLD constituency, geographically diverse as it
necessarily is. The voting process should be reviewed after the first year.
The consensus was that the ccTLD proposal should state that it will be
formed without the concept of regional members. 
A proposal that a backup plan should be presented in the event that ICANN
does not want (or can not) accept the ccTLD proposal in this form did not
get consensus.

Point 5.3 stated "Each member shall have one (1) vote for the election of
the Names Council."
This is accepted

Point 5.4 stated "The Single Transferable Voting system of Proportional
Representation shall be used, with the additional restriction that once a
candidate from a region is elected, other candidates from that region are
eliminated and their next preference votes distributed to the remaining
candidates."
This was the point that really established the above-mentioned decision to
suggest removal of the regional classification of candidates. GG stated
that the rule may give unpredictable result in the voting process. Denis
sought opinion on the region idea. ZA stated that ccTLDs already have
diversity and that it will be a much harder point to fulfil for the other
constituencies. GH, UK
and NU also contributed to the discussion. It was agreed after a long
discussion that the voting would not work properly when the most popular
candidates are easily thrown out by coming from a region where another
candidate is elected. Instead the process should be monitored for area bias
and changed as deemed necessary. CA had misgivings about this procedure and
suggested that ICANN may be inclined to postpone the inclusion of a ccTLD
constituency at until August. The consensus was that the ccTLD needs to
stand firm on this point.

10:00 Mike Roberts, CEO of ICANN spoke to the ccTLD formation meeting:
The points from this speech can be had on request. The highlights are:
ICANN has modernised RFC1591 and the resulting document is called ICP1
which is posted on the IANA Website. Some concern was expressed that the
document had not been announced widely and that posting it on a Website was
not enough.. Some mirth was generated when Denis compared it to the Vogon
behaviour in the start of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy" (look it
up). 
Further discussion on the ways to distribute information received the comment
from Dennis to distribute by mailing list/email. 
The general worry was whether even if the spirit of RFC1591 is not changed,
it might have legal ramifications if ccTLDs cannot keep to the RFC for
agreements. Mike Roberts invited to discuss it with him over email.
The issue where Sean Jackson was blocked from representing the Turks &
Ciacos Islands in the GAC meeting was raised. Mike Roberts stated that RFC
1591 specifically did not get into the business of defining countries but
that the first part of the GAC meeting definitely was for governments of
countries.
It was commented that GAC meetings was primarily to make sure that
regulations decided upon do not conflict with national law.
GG raised the point that the ICANN is still US-centred, and the rumour that
the US might like to control the Internet as desired (for example, to
remove .YU from the root) came up. Mike Roberts responded that no matter
where the ICANN placed its root this would be a problem if the country had
problems.
Most important to the ccTLD formation was that Mike Roberts accepted that
there might be  need to rethink the idea of regional candidates, as has
been discussed in the ccTLD meeting so far. He comments that other
constituencies has similar problems to find an effective way to ensure
diversity. Mike Roberts leaves the meeting at 10:40.
 
The meeting resumed after a short coffee break.

Point 6.1 stated that "Names Council members shall serve for one year and
elections shall be held annually."
This was accepted without comments

Point 6.2 stated that "There shall be no limit on the number of terms an
individual may serve on the Names Council."
A number of objections were raised. Consensus was reached that a decision
on term limits should be made at a later stage, and that point 6.2 should
be struck out.

Point 7.1 stated that "The work of the ccTLD Constituency shall proceed
following the rules of procedure to be established by the Constituency and
managed by the Management Council."
This was accepted

Point 7.2 stated that "Where resolutions or recommendations require a vote
of the membership, each ccTLD Constituency member shall have one (1) vote."
This was accepted

Point 7.3 stated that "The ccTLD Constituency members may arrange any
necessary finance for the constituency in a manner to be agreed by the
Constituency."
This was accepted, as it says very little except that financing is the
ccTLD's own responsibility. The consensus was that the ccTLD should keep
administration to a minimum, and that the groups making up the council will
keep their own expenses but may contribute to cover costs for the general
ccTLD maintenance when and if it arises. No further mechanism is proposed
for funding.

Point 8 stated that "The ccTLD Constituency may share in the funding of the
DNSO in a manner to be agreed by the Names Council and accepted by the
ccTLD Constituency Names Council members."
Point 9 stated that "The ccTLD Constituency members will participate in the
DNSO General Assembly."
Accepted without comment

Point 10.1 stated that "The ccTLD Constituency processes shall adhere to
the ICANN principles of openness and transparency." The meeting does not
vouch for ICANN principles, and the consensus was to let the sentence stand
without the word "ICANN" (amid some mirth)

Point 10.2 stated that "Meetings of the ccTLD Constituency shall, as far as
practicable, be open to the public."
A question was raised about whether it includes public access to mailing
lists. Since the ccTLD mailing list will be moderated, and the groups that
work within the ccTLD organisation may have private mailing list. 
The point was accepted as it stands.

Point 11.1 stated that "The ccTLD Constituency shall operate using whatever
electronic means are available for discussion and communication to ensure,
as far as practicable, that neither location nor inability to travel
disenfranchises any ccTLD."
The point was accepted, with consensus on the fact that this means e-mail.
.

Point 11.2 stated that "The ccTLD Constituency voting procedures shall
require that all resolutions are confirmed by a secure electronic vote of
the members so that no proxy voting is required (or permitted)."
A discussion regarding secret (as compared to secure) voting ensued.. The
consensus was that an open vote with a person screening the counting data
is acceptable, and that security is obtained by verifying that only one
vote is cast per member and sending a acknowledgement to the member that
the vote has been received.

Final comments before adjourning was that the conclusions from this meeting
need distributing to remaining ccTLDs for their input. 

The Chairs expressed thank to DENIC (Germany) for their efforts in
organising the meeting and to all participants for attending.

CLOSE


Particpants list:

Fay Howard		CENTR
Antony van CouveringIATLD
Kilnam Chon		APTLD & .KR Korea
Dennis Jennings	CENTR & .IE Ireland
Robert Hall		.CA	Canada
Oscar Robles		LACTLD & .MX	Mexico
Nii Quaynor		.GH	Ghana
Bill Semich		.NU	Niue
Jim Higgins		.NZ	New Zealand
Jorn Grotnes		.GM  Gambia (Scribe)
Harold Carrol		.NU	Niue
Doron Shikmoni	.IL	Israel
Kuo Wei Wu		.TW	Taiwan
Alf Hansen		.NO	Norway
Elisabeth Porteneuve.FR	France
Annie Renard		.FR	France
Marc Hensel		.LU	Luxembourg
Eva Froelich		.SE 	Sweden
Per Darnell		.SE 	Sweden
Barbara Povse Golab	.SI	Slovenia
Pedro Veiga		.PT	Portugal
Marta Dias		.PT	Portugal
Boudewijn Nederkoorn.NL	Netherlands
Bart Boswinkel	.NL	Netherlands
Youn Jung Park	APTLD
Maciej Kozlwski	.PL	Poland
Robert Ryan		.NF	Norfolk Island
Ed Sweeney		.HM	Heard and McDonald Islands
Karen Rose		.US (Observer) USA
Agnes Lee		.SG	Singapore
Makiko Matsumara	.JP 	Japan
Toshi Tsubo		.JP	Japan
Shuichi Tashiro	.JP	Japan
Clint Mole		.KY	Cayman Islands
John Harris		.MD	Moldova
Willie Balck		.UK	United Kingdom
Robert de Neewtown	.UK	United Kingdom
Paul Kane		.IO	Indian Ocean Territories
Anthony Brooks	.ZA	South Africa
Yann Kwok		.MU	Mauritius
Victor Castelo	.ES	Spain
Nigel Roberts		.GG/JE	Guernsey/Jersey
Demi Getschko		.BR	Brazil
William Mee		.ZA	South Africa
Vittore Casarosa	.IT	Italy
Agathoclis Stylianou.CY	Cypress
Per Koelle		.DK	Denmark
Carsten Scheifner	.DE	Germany
Sabine Dolderer	.DE 	Germany
Eugenie Staicut	.RO	Romania
Marcel Schneider	.CH/LI	Switzerland, Lichtenstein
Sean Jackson		.TC 	Turks & Ciacos Islands

(There were also a small number who attended part of the meeting but did
not sign the attendance sheet)

DRAFT
 
 - For Approval by the ICANN Board

ccTLD Constituency of the DNSO

Version 4.0 - 25 May 1999


Principles 

The following are the guiding principles for the organisation of the ccTLD
Constituency.  This document is based on the principles of openness,
geographic diversity, inclusivity and simplicity, as expressed during the
discussions at the initial ccTLD Constituency meeting held in Berlin.

1. The ccTLD Constituency

1.1. The ccTLD Constituency of the Domain Name Supporting Organisation,
('DNSO') is one of the initial constituencies of the DNSO.

2. Members of the ccTLD Constituency

2.1. Members of the ccTLD Constituency are those recorded managers of an
ISO 3166 country code Top Level Domain Registry in the register maintained
by IANA/ICANN.  Managers may decline to join the ccTLD Constituency.
2.2. Members are represented by an individual, preferably at a senior
level, duly authorised by the ccTLD manager.

3. The ccTLD Administration Committee

3.1. An Administration Committee shall manage the affairs of the ccTLD
Constituency.
3.2. The initial Administration Committee shall consist of representatives
of the ccTLD regional organisations.
3.3. In addition, any grouping of 10 or more ccTLD members may self
organise and nominate a representative to the Administration Committee.

4. Consensus

4.1. The ccTLD Constituency shall operate on the principle that decisions
shall be made on the basis of consensus.
4.2. The consensus process shall be managed by the ccTLD Administration
Committee.

5. The ccTLD Names Council Members

5.1. Two members may nominate (i.e. propose and second) an individual as a
candidate for election to the Names Council.  Candidates may accept or
decline such nomination.
5.2. Each member shall have one (1) vote for the election of the Names
Council.
5.3. The Single Transferable Voting system of Proportional Representation
shall be used to elect the three Names Council members.  
(N.B. This method of election from a slate of candidates nominated from
around the world, and selected by an electorate from every country in the
world, has the inherent advantage that the outcome is most likely to
produce a geographically diverse set of Names Council members).
5.4. Names Council members shall serve for one year and elections shall be
held annually.
5.5. The above voting procedures shall be reviewed prior to the second
election.  
(N.B. A particular concern is that the election procedures shall result in
the election of excellent candidates who reflect the geographical diversity
of ccTLD Constituency).

6. Work of the ccTLD Constituency

6.1. The work of the ccTLD Constituency shall proceed following the rules
of procedure to be established by the Constituency and managed by the
Administration Committee.
6.2. Where resolutions or recommendations require a poll of the membership,
each ccTLD Constituency member shall have one (1) vote.

7. Funding the ccTLD Constituency

7.1. The ccTLD Constituency members may arrange any necessary funding for
the constituency in a manner to be agreed by the Constituency.

8. Funding the DNSO

8.1. The ccTLD Constituency may share in the funding of the DNSO in a
manner to be agreed by the Names Council and accepted by the ccTLD
Constituency.

9. Participation in the DNSO General Assembly

9.1. The ccTLD Constituency members will participate in the DNSO General
Assembly.

10. Open Transparent Processes
10.1. The ccTLD Constituency processes shall adhere to the principles of
openness and transparency.
10.2. Meetings of the ccTLD Constituency shall, as far as practicable, be
open to the public.

11. Electronic Participation

11.1. The ccTLD Constituency shall operate using whatever electronic means
are available for discussion and communication to ensure, as far as
practicable, that neither location nor inability to travel disenfranchises
any ccTLD.
11.2. The ccTLD Constituency voting procedures shall require that all
resolutions be confirmed by a secure (and where necessary confidential)
electronic vote of the members.

12. Amendments

12.1. These ccTLD Constituency principles may be amended by a two-thirds
majority of a vote of the ccTLD Constituency members.
12.2. Upon a petition by at least 10% of the membership, the ccTLD
Administration Committee shall put any matter to a vote of the whole
Constituency.



On behalf of the ccTLD Constituency meeting in Berlin.