[CCWG-ACCT] [Ws2-hr] clarification re Human Right Subgroup work and FOI - Human Rights with "Considerations"

[Nigel Roberts]

Right on target.



On 04/10/17 15:27, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
> Anne
> 
> Weighing in here, I see some confusion:
> 
> Her response was (and I paraphrase)  "No, but ICANN is a 
> quasi-governmental organization and has a lot of power to influence 
> Human Rights going forward".  So for anyone who feels that ICANN is a 
> quasi-governmental organization, they will push ICANN the organization 
> in this direction without remembering the applicable law limitation and 
> the fact that ICANN is NOT A QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL organization and its 
> policy development is not the top-down process followed by other 
> non-profits.
> 
> The key characteristic of ICANN is _/not/_ that it is a nonprofit and 
> _/not/_ that it is a so-called “bottom up multistakeholder” 
> organization. The ICANN feature of relevance to Human Rights is that 
> ICANN makes global public policy regarding domain name registration and 
> use. In this sense, it certainly is a “quasi-governmental” entity, 
> indeed it was created to serve as a globalized substitute for 
> territorial governments because of the Internet’s inherent need for 
> globally coordinated policy for the DNS to avoid fragmentation. We say 
> quasi-governmental because it has exclusive control of an essential 
> facility and thus its policies, like a state’s, are effectively binding 
> on most suppliers and (through them) users of the DNS.
> 
> If ICANN makes public policy, then it follows that ICANN’s _/policies/_ 
> must respect (or not violate) recognized human rights, especially ones 
> like freedom of expression and privacy that are related to Internet use. 
> There is no inconsistency in the requirement that ICANN’s substantive 
> policies respect human rights and ICANN’s limited mission; indeed, they 
> are complementary. ICANN can only make policies in areas authorized by 
> its mission and core values. HR concerns are an additional constraint on 
> what ICANN can do when making policies; e.g. it cannot violate free 
> expression or privacy rights. It is not an authorization to do 
> additional things.
> 
> Those of us who have objected to the use of the Ruggie principles have 
> done so because Ruggie misses the target. We want ICANN’s _/policies/_ 
> to respect Human Rights, we do not think ICANN’s internal operations 
> will violate human rights. That is, we don’t think ICANN has a 
> propensity to use slave labor etc. The problem with Ruggie is that it 
> focuses on  commercial operations of businesses, not on policy makers. 
> The Ruggie principles can serve as a massive diversion from the 
> substantive policy issues that ICANN deals with, and if applied 
> inappropriately it can also push ICANN the corporation to do things 
> outside its mission.
> 
> The fact that key players in this discussion still don’t understand – or 
> resist admitting – that ICANN is indeed a quasi-governmental policy 
> maker causes me some concern. The whole HR discussion makes no sense 
> unless you understand that.
> 
> Dr. Milton Mueller
> 
> Professor, School of Public Policy
> 
> Georgia Institute of Technology
> 
> IGP_logo_gold block_email sig <http://www.internetgovernance.org/>
> 
> 
> 
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