NCSG Colleagues, I have been struggling with this issue and its place 
within ICANN's governance model and structures for some time and am a 
bit disturbed when commentary borders on personal (ad hominem) 
criticism. Here is my twenty-five cents worth of analysis and opinion.

It comes as no surprise that there is a broad range of opinion as to how 
a human rights commitment should be imbedded in ICANN's organizational 
and structural DNA. As the history of subsequent efforts to amend/extend 
the UDRD show, the issues are not around what not to include, but what 
to stress in particular contexts, in this case the context is the 
intersection between ICANN's activities in the operational properties of 
the DNS system, and the pursuit and protection of human rights.

Reading the contributions there are three schools of thought here. One 
is getting the wording right. Another is getting the procedures right, 
and the third is getting both right. I would like to suggest that the 
strength of the UDHR is the generality of the wording which allows 
relevance across contexts. I fear specific ICANN wording, rather than a 
more general commitment to honoring human rights, runs the risk of 
focusing arguments on whether or not a particular ICANN move, or 
position, is covered by the adopted ICANN wording.

Rather than a focus on getting consensus on what would be the right 
wording I would propose starting with a simple ICANN commitment to honor 
the spirit of the UDHR in its policies and practices, and following that 
with a simple procedural process. There are many places within the 
Internet’s ecosystem where it impacts on human rights, and there are a 
multitude of stakeholder and constituency groups on guard and struggling 
to defend human rights in specific contexts and specific settings.

As part of ICANN accountability a simple ICANN human rights process 
could involve the same informal relationship with external human rights 
stakeholder groups that exists elsewhere in industry and in government. 
Those stakeholders exist and continue to operate as ICANN HR watchdogs, 
as they will in any event. ICANN, within its structures, can set up a 
"window" where complaints and concerns are received. This could be a 
multistakeholder HR advisory committee with a fairly simple charter 
where it decides which received issues are of substance and which are 
not, and where it directs HR issues of concern to appropriate bodies 
within ICANN, to be addressed or not addressed, as those bodies decide.

Will this result in ICANN addressing all HR issues? No. Will it satisfy 
all who are concerned with ICANN's impact on this or that particular HR 
issue? No. Will it stop external groups from continuing to apply 
pressure when their particular HR interest is not addressed? No.  It 
will do none of those things, nothing will. But it will provide a 
process and a mechanism whereby a substantial portion of the human 
rights issues linked to ICANN's remit, policies and practice do receive 
attention, and are addressed. Of course, they will not go away when they 
are not addressed to everyone’s satisfaction. Such is, and such will 
always be, the nature of our struggles around upholding human rights.

Let us go forward with a general endorsement of the UDHR and a modest 
process for handing issues. Any more will be an organizational nightmare 
and fail to achieve any more than an embedded modest HR issues response 
procedure.

Sam Lanfranco
Chair, NPOC Policy Committee