I think the paper is very interesting and 
basically saying that ICANN (including GAC) is not fulfilling human rights 
obligations and that private sector, intellectual property and and law 
enforcement interests have been weighed too heavily in the balance of 
decision-making to the detriment of human rights and other stakeholders, 
including vulnerable groups. These are all valid (if not entirely new) points - 
some reflections for working up to a possible submission:
+ I think this paper is evidence that discourse is moving beyond "whether" human 
rights apply to ICANN public policy making (the previous paper I contributed to) 
and more specifically into "how" in a very practical way - that is excellent and 
should be welcomed - the clear link to human rights in NETMundial and related 
documents seems to be tipping the human rights discussion - that is also really positive
+ the use of case studies to look at how HR apply in specific ICANN policy areas 
is good, showing up deficiencies in both the standards and processes ICANN is 
using - The paper does mention social and cultural rights but only in passing in 
relation to the community application dotgay, so I think this makes our own work 
on ICANN and cultural rights timely and this CoE paper will be useful for it.
+ several parts of the analysis and of the recommendations were already made by 
the Non Commercial Users Constituency in a submission developed in 2013 (one 
that we worked on and which NCUC submitted to ICANN on human rights and 
new gTLDs) - but I do not see that paper cited - we should point out this 
connection in making comments
+ clearly governments are reaching for the human rights framework to challenge 
the behaviour of other governments (as in relation the law enforcement and the 
registrar accreditation agreement) - so while the paper is directed  at ICANN, 
it is also squarely directed between and among governments - it suggests there 
is a lot of discussion going on behind GAC's closed doors on this.... I really 
like the references to the UN resolutions internet rights - it is good to see 
this jurisprudence emerging.
+ there is inadequate focus on how the HR framework applies to business - not just business interests in ICANN stakeholders, but also the contracted parties, such as registrars and ICANN's role as a regulator  - Anriette raised these points and I think we need to think through how to respond on this - especially on the human rights and business rules that were 
developed in the UN
+ the analysis and recommendations on community applications is very useful and 
I strongly support this aspect
+ the paper recommends reconsideration of ICANN's legal basis to include human 
rights in its bylaws - that is good - but they should also become a member of 
the GNI: Rafik Dammak and others have been calling for this for 2 yrs but ICANN 
board has actively opposed that step. so we can raise that
+ also recommends looking at the Red Cross as possible inspiration for a model - 
that made me shudder give how the RC has behaved in policy making in ICANN. A 
better model might be the ILO - but we must respond on that specific point.
+ finally, perhaps one of the more thorny and challenging issues is trying to 
define the public interest aspects of ICANN's role and also GAC's 
responsibilities - i think it's useful to raise this again and try to squarely 
address it and there are some options (the paper recommends an expert advisory 
group) - NCUC recommended a human rights impact assessment of policy proposals  
- i think we could also revive that idea.....




Joy