Eric Brunner Williams, an individual member of the North American Regional At-Large Organization (NARALO), initially composed two statements on this public comment issue, which gained support with the NARALO membership and, later, with the wider At-Large community. The At-Large staff placed these statements on a wiki workspace and, on 11 May 2011, circulated a call for comments to the At- Large community.
On 15 May 2011, Olivier Crépin-Leblond, Chair of the ALAC, rewrote the initial two statements - based on the At-Large comments entered onto the wiki workspace and received by email - and combined them into a single statement, which underwent another round of community review until 17 May 2011. The resulting statement is presented here.
On 17 May 2011, Olivier Crépin-Leblond requested that the At-Large staff begin a five-day ALAC ratification vote on this statement starting on the same day. Also on 17 May, the Statement was transmitted to the Board, with a note explaining that the document was currently undergoing ALAC ratification, and to Craig Schwartz, the ICANN staff member responsible for this public comment topic (as the At-Large staff was asked to do by Kurt Pritz when he granted permission for this Statement to be submitted after the close of the public comment period).