[CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

Colleagues,

I would like to suggest that our human rights language include something 
along the lines of: "no religious test shall ever be required as a 
qualification to any office or public trust."

The source is Article VI of the Constitution of the United States.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon


On 11/5/15 8:53 AM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
> Colleagues,
>
> Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through 
> crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their 
> respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the 
> global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt 
> "off-line", that the Corporation did something.
>
> It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg 
> zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" 
> before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its 
> jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, 
> again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated 
> via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the 
> one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the 
> pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded.
>
> In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone 
> data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent 
> of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
>
> And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human 
> rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the 
> rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution 
> withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and 
> correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or 
> possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state 
> actors to access the global routing database.
>
> Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in 
> person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no 
> idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan 
> NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the 
> namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the 
> lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct 
> control over", with the implication that the use of local language, 
> and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a 
> human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation.
>
> And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human 
> rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and 
> whistles.
>
> Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion 
> by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the 
> Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the 
> Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- 
> continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in 
> languages other than US English.
>
> Eric Brunner-Williams
> Eugene, Oregon
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