[CCWG-ACCT] [Ws2-hr] clarification re Human Right Subgroup work and FOI - Human Rights with "Considerations"
Nigel Roberts
nigel at channelisles.net
Wed Oct 4 14:44:01 UTC 2017
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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