Well said Sam, and I agree 100% with your last two paragraphs. WS2 has commenced and I urge you to re-echo this within the group that will discuss this topic early enough.
The earlier we get a clear direction on some of these issues the more we save on legal hours.
Regards
Sent from my LG G4
Kindly excuse brevity and typos
I have stayed relatively quiet in the ICANN and Human Rights (HR) discussion. I will make my position known here, in very brief language, not so much as to record my position but to bring some perspective to the possible way forward.
ICANN is a not-for-profit entity pledged to operate in the public interest. It goes without saying that this includes respect for Human Rights, but it may be worth having ICANN say it on the record, but leave it to others to judge ICANN’s record with regard to Human Rights.
What do I mean by that? What do I suggest? My thinking is that ICANN can pledge to consider the Human Rights aspects of all of its DNS Internet governance policies and implementation, but (BIG BUT) ICANN stops short of incorporating anything like a Human Rights check list, a Human Rights score card, or internal ICANN human rights performance monitoring, as it pursues policy development. Leave that to constituencies as they struggle within the multistakeholder policy development process, and leave the assessments of ICANN’s record to outside third parties for whom Human Rights are central to their own mission, vision and remit.
Why do I suggest this split between an ICANN pledge and outside monitoring? There is a legitimate fear that internalizing the monitoring process would malfunction at several levels. It could become unwieldy, it could become time consuming, it could become self-serving, and it could become a venue for proxy fights around other issues. Let ICANN and its multistakeholder policy making process, and its organizational implementation processes, be open and transparent, and let’s hold ICANN accountable on the Human Rights front by assessing it from outside ICANN.
This should not be a struggle over whether Human Rights are in or out of ICANN.
Sam L. NPOC/CSIH
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"It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured
in an unjust state" -Confucius
邦有道，贫且贱焉，耻也。邦无道，富且贵焉，耻也
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Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar)
Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3
email: [log in to unmask] Skype: slanfranco
blog: http://samlanfranco.blogspot.com
Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852