ICANN Empowered Community

The ICANN Empowered Community is the mechanism through which ICANN’s Supporting Organizations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) can organize, under California law, to legally enforce its community powers. The community powers and rules that govern the Empowered Community are defined in the ICANN Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. As an ICANN SO, the Address Supporting Organization (ASO), participates in ICANN’s Empowered Community.

Community Powers

The ICANN Empowered Community can exercise the following nine powers to ensure that the ICANN Board and Organization are accountable:

  • Reject ICANN and IANA budgets, and ICANN operating and strategic plans
  • Reject standard Bylaw amendments
  • Reject PTI governance actions
  • Approve fundamental Bylaw and Articles amendments, and asset sales
  • Recall the entire ICANN Board
  • Appoint and remove individual ICANN Board directors (other than the President)
  • Require the ICANN Board to review its rejection of IANA Function Review (IFR),special IFR, Separation Cross-Community Working Group (SCWG) creation,and SCWG recommendation decisions
  • Initiate community reconsideration request, mediation, or Independent Review Process (IRP)
  • The rights of inspection and investigation

Roles

Empowered Community Decisional Participant The Address Supporting Organization (ASO) is the Decisional Participant.
Empowered Community Decisional Participant Representative The current Chair of the NRO, who also acts as Chair of the ASO, acts as the Empowered Community Decisional Participant Representative. The Chair of the NRO/ASO acts only by consensus of all five members of the NRO Executive Council.
The Empowered Community Administration Representative The current Secretary of the NRO acts as the The Empowered Community Administration Representative. The Chair of the NRO/ASO acts only by consensus of all five members of the NRO Executive Council.

Role of the ASO AC

As per the ASO MoU, the ASO Address Council (AC) define procedures to select individuals to serve on other ICANN bodies, in particular on the ICANN Board Seats 9 and 10. The NRO EC therefore would consult the ASO AC if the Empowered Community exercised the following powers:

  • Recall the entire ICANN Board
  • Appoint and remove individual ICANN Board directors (other than the President)

As the Empowered Community Decisional Participant Representative, the Chair of the NRO EC is legally obliged to act whether or not input from the ASO AC is received in the event of these two community powers being exercised. The Chair of the NRO EC acts only on the basis of consensus of all five NRO EC members.

 

Last modified on 14/09/2021