Yesterday, I sent a letter to the chair of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee, Sharil Tarmizi, asking him to consider opening up all GAC meetings to observers.
He's got back:
I am currently in Vancouver and thank you very much for your letter. Your main request for the GAC to be more open is indeed well received. In fact, we had started being more open since I took office in January 2003.
Now, if i am not mistaken our meetings are at least 75% open with a large part of the closed portions being relegated to internal business and preparatory type meetings.
I guess what we have not done well is to tell people about it.:-)
However, we continue to strive to further improve and i appreciate your thoughts on this issue. I will see what we can achieve in the shorter term and further and beyond.
thanks and best regards,
Sharil
He then asked in a second email if he could forward the letter to GAC members. I said yes of course. Sounds promising to me.
Mr Tarmizi's term as the non-voting ICANN Board member acting as GAC liason finishes at the end of the Vancouver meeting. I will have to find out whether this means there will be a new GAC chair.
