Montréal, 7 November 2019:

The five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), acting as the Address Supporting Organization (ASO), have today signed a revised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The revisions to the MoU include the recommended changes outlined in the 2017 Independent Review of the ASO.

Due to a tied eVote, the Address Supporting Organization Address Council (ASO AC) has implemented the Run Off procedure in order to enable it to select a representative to serve on the ICANN Nominating Committee.

The Run Off procedure is described in section 7.4.4 of the ASO AC Operating Procedures.

New Timeline 

Start of Run Off eVote: 23 August 2019
End of Run Off eVote: 27 August 2019
Announcement of selected candidate: 28 August 2019

Further Information: 

– Nomination Call for Representative on 2020 ICANN Nominating Committee  
– Deadline Extended: ASO AC Call For Nominations for the ASO Representative on the ICANN NomCom

The Number Resource Organization (NRO) was established by the NRO Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed in 2003 and 2004 by the RIRs, which also defines the NRO Number Council (NRO-NC). The Address Supporting Organization (ASO) was established by the ASO MoU, signed in 2004 by the NRO and ICANN, under which the NRO-NC serves as the ASO Address Council (ASO-AC). The ASO MoU also defines the role of the ASO-AC, which includes advising the Board of ICANN on proposed global number resource policies.

Each RIR’s (Regional Internet Registry) community selects two people to serve on the NRO-NC/ASO-AC. Each RIR’s Board also appoints one person from its respective region to serve.

The role and responsibilities of ASO-AC members are defined in the ASO MoU and in the ASO-AC Operating Procedures. All ASO-AC members are expected to adhere to this and any Council member who does anything which falls outside the defined scope does so in their personal capacity rather as a member of ASO-AC, or for the ASO-AC .

Members of Address Council “do not” speak on behalf of the Council. Address Council members can only make statements on behalf of Council if it is the clearly stated position of the Address Council. Kindly review the ASO MoU for all the details.

Aftab Siddiqui
ASO AC Chair.

In line with the ASO Review 2017 “Recommendation #16: For its internal communications, and for most matters related to the operations of the ASO, the ASO should favour the use of a publicly archived mailing list. In exceptional circumstances, for issues (e.g. Board appointments) that cannot be discussed in public, a non-publicly archived list should be used“, a new publicly archived mailing list, ac-discuss@aso.icann.org, has been implemented for the ASO AC to carry out its day-to-day operations. The ac-discuss mailing list replaces the ac-coord mailing list, which has now been closed.

Subscription to the ac-discuss mailing list is limited to current ASO AC members, designated RIR and ICANN staff observers and the ASO/NRO Secretariat. Non-member posts are subject to moderation.

The ac-discuss archived can be accessed here

A private, ASO AC member-only mailing list, ac-internal@aso.icann.org, has also been implemented to enable the ASO AC to discuss internal matters, such as ICANN Board Seat Election candidates. This mailing list is not publicly archived.

You can find an overview of all current and past ASO mailing lists here

ICANN’s Nominating Committee (NomCom) is responsible for the selection of eight ICANN Board Members, two directors of the Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) and for other selections as are set forth in the Bylaws (see Article 8, Section 8.1).

The NomCom is also charged with appointing some members of the ALAC, ccNSO Council and the GNSO Council. The NomCom complements the other means for filling a portion of key ICANN leadership positions achieved within the SOs and ACs.

As per the ICANN Bylaws (Article 8, Section 8.2), the Address Supporting Organization Address Council (ASO AC) is pleased to invite nominations for candidates from the “Internet Numbers Community” to run for an open seat on the ICANN NomCom 2020 as delegate of the ASO.

The term for the selected delegate will be one year starting in ICANN 66 in Montreal, Canada, in November 2019 (see Article 8, Section 8.3 for term limits).

All ICANN Bylaws described above can be found here.

Time Commitment for the ASO NomCom Representative

• The person should be able to join monthly teleconferences (typically 15:00 or 16:00 UTC). Note that the committee’s workload
  will increase significantly during Apr/May/June 2020 when the candidate assessment process will be at its busiest. Conference calls are held more frequently (typically weekly and the duration of the calls may last up to 3 hours) during this time.
• The person should be able to join (in person), three ICANN (66, 67 and 68) meetings and an intersessional meeting (location decided by NomCom 2020). Travel support for all meetings is provided by ICANN.
• The person must be able to attend the NomCom selection meeting in late June 2020 during ICANN 68.

The ICANN NomCom has a set of guidelines and procedural documents for reference that provide additional information about the work of the NomCom.

Deadlines and Important Dates

The ASO AC will be responsible for the selection of the delegate based on the following timeline:

• Announcement of call for nominations for 2020 ICANN NomCom: 5 July 2019
• Nomination period ends: 28 July 2019
• Evaluation of nominations by the ASO AC: 28 July – 7 August 2019
• Voting period by the ASO AC: 7 August – 14 August 2019
• Announcement of selected delegate: 15 August 2019

All nominations should be sent to secretariat [at] aso [dot] icann [dot] org by 28 July 2019 23:59 UTC.

The ASO AC held its monthly meeting on 11 March 2019, during the ICANN 64 Meeting in Kobe, Japan. Observers were welcome and those AC members not present in Kobe were able to dial in. The session recording and transcripts can be found here. The minutes from this meeting can be found here.

The ASO AC also organized a well-attended public ASO Session, “Let’s Talk About Numbers”, on 13 Mach 2019. The agenda for this session included an update from  Kim Davies, Vice President IANA Services, on the status of allocated resources (IPv4, IPv6 and ASN) and a presentation from the current Chair of the Number Resource Organization (NRO) Alan Barrett, about global IPv4 and IPv6 delegations. The ASO AC gave an overview of the current number policies under discussion in the five RIR regions. The session recording and transcripts are available here.

Further, the ASO AC took the opportunity to advance work items currently on its agenda and engage in informal discussions with colleagues throughout the week.

The ASO AC is pleased to announce that it has selected Akinori Maemura to serve for a three-year term in Seat 10 of the ICANN Board of Directors.

Mr. Maemura is the ASO AC’s current appointee to Seat 10. His current term will end in November 2019 and his new term will begin at the conclusion of the ICANN 66 Meeting, which will be held from 2-7 November, 2019, in Montréal, Canada.

You can find more information about Mr. Maemura here. 

Thanks
The ASO AC would like to thank all candidates for the significant amount of time they devoted to the selection process and for their willingness to serve on the ICANN Board.

Selection Process
Mr. Maemura appointment followed a lengthy selection process, which included a public call for nominations, a public comment period, written and telephone interviews for the candidates, as well as a voting process in in which all eligible ASO AC members were given the opportunity to vote.

Full details of the election process and information on all candidates, can be found on the 2019 ASO AC ICANN Board Elections page.