[CCWG-ACCT] Speaking of our Adviser recommendations

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

Thanks Bruce for your response.

I think making adherence to human rights explicit in the core values is
a good idea.  The other part of a possible solution is to include in our
mission a commitment to understanding the impact that our decisions have
on Human Rights.  And while it is true the first of the rights that come
to mind is the Freedom of Expression, ICANN technical mission easily
touches on other rights as well such as privacy, association, equality
before the law,  and even the right to property (until recently the only
right ICANN recognized in its procedures).

In thinking about human rights, we also have to move beyond the
reference only to the  Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
consider both the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the
Covenant on Economic,  Social and Cultural rights.  These 3 documents, 2
of which are binding on most of the countries our GAC members represent,
constitute a global Bill of Rights and go into details on the various
rights. Together with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights issued by the United Nation Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, these make up the basis for ethical right-based behavior
in today's world for corporation, both for profit and not for profit. As
a corporation in the public benefit, I believe they are something that
ICANN must hold itself accountable to. 

We should not single out a subset of rights that we adhere to.  We need
to be committed to Human Rights, even though it is true that some of
them will never be an issue, e.g. the food and shelter examples.  What
is important is that whenever we have a decsion to make we understand
whether there is an inpact on any of the human rights and that we be
committed to avoid decisions with negative impact on these rights. 

I understand that this can be complicated, especially given the fact
that different jurisdictions have different interpretations at times of
the rights they are bound to.  Some might even call it complex.  And
while 'complex' has seemed to have become synonymous for 'things that
are too hard for ICANN,' I think human rights as a core value and
understanding our impact on these rights as part of our mission, are
really the base upon which all accountability must be built.

Thanks for taking the issue seriously.

avri


On 01-Jun-15 22:12, Bruce Tonkin wrote:
> Hello Avri,
>
>
>>>  Just wanted to say how impressed I was to hear several of our advisers pointing out that the work we had done to date had not emphasized Human Rights in our principles.  And that it was important we did so.
> Perhaps it could be more explicit in our core values?
>
> I assume you are not talking so much about the right to food and shelter, or no-one should be a slave etc  (part from perhaps the volunteers at ICANN that might feel that way at times :-))  - but more specifically you are talking about the right to freedom of speech etc.   ie it would be useful to pull out the sections of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that are relevant to ICANN's narrow mission.
>
> Regards,
> Bruce Tonkin
>
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