Preparing for an ICANN meeting has now become a full-time job for many participants, from ICANN Staff to the numerous volunteers that contribute to the bulk of the ICANN processes.
The preparations for one of the 3 yearly International Meetings start as soon as the previous one is over, sometimes even before that. A full meeting planning team is in operation at ICANN, but input is also required from the Supporting Organisations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) that make up the ICANN structure.
As the body responsible for setting generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) policy, the GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organisation) is part of that planning. At each meeting, we work on our own agenda and strive to meet the deadlines set for its publication. We interact with the other SOs and ACs as everyone tries to fit into the increasingly busy schedule that is an ICANN meeting week.
It is as part of this preparatory work that we have learned that the GAC/Board discussions on new gTLDs that started in Brussels in February and continued at the San Francisco ICANN meeting in March are set to once again disrupt the normal business of community discussions and policy development that is the raison-d'être of an ICANN meeting.
It seems the GAC has requested time with the Board for the Sunday June 19, the day before the planned special meeting of the Board which is set to green-light the new gTLD program at long last (the program stems from a 2-year GNSO Policy Development Process that ended way back in 2007 and was approved for implementation by the ICANN Board in 2008).
This promises more disruptions for the many participants that volunteer time to ICANN. The GNSO community, for instance, traditionally has a full weekend of working sessions prior to an ICANN meeting's official launch on the Monday. One of these sessions is a meeting between the GNSO Council and the GAC. Very useful discussions often take place during the meeting, which we are now told will have to be postponed for at least 2 days during the Singapore ICANN meeting week.
If the GNSO schedule is disrupted in this way, it's a sure bet that others will also see their meetings moved or cancelled. A small price to pay for actually getting the new gTLD program to the finish line, some would say. But ICANN is not only about new gTLDs. The GNSO and the other ICANN groups are engaged in other crucial work. Seeing that work constantly pushed aside to make way for the endlessly circular debates around new gTLDs has become a problem. Especially for an organisation dedicated to giving everyone a voice, and where no one voice should be louder than anyone else's, as CEO Rod Beckstrom usefully reminded us in San Francisco.
At the moment, that is clearly not true. The GAC has a louder voice than the rest of us. And the new gTLDs are crystallising tensions in the ICANN community, as everyone tries as hard as possible to push their own agenda, sometimes to the detriment of the common good.
So we are to expect more disruptions in Singapore. So be it. Let's just hope that this time, it's the last time. At this point, many ICANN participants would probably breathe a sigh of relief at seeing new gTLDs crossed off ICANN's to-do list for the last time, so that we can all get on with other work.
