[cc-humanrights] Last call for CCWP charter

[Niels ten Oever]

Hello everyone,

I have tried to balance both the comments and text suggestions from
everyone in the following draft text for the CCWP. I tried to balance
ICANNs corporate responsibilities, social responsibilities, its impact
on society and its impact on human rights.

I hope this text is both broad and narrow enough for everyone to work
with. I'm greatly looking forward to your endorsements, comments
(preferably with text suggestions), I hope we can make the final
decision on Tuesday.

Best,

Niels

PS I'm also keeping a pad with the changes here:
https://etherpad.mozilla.org/icannhr

Background

This cross community working party (CCWP) seeks to map and understand
the issues and potential solutions related to corporate and social
responsibilities of the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and this related, but not
limited to policies, procedures and operations, it particularly
focuses on ICANNs responsibility to respect human rights. It builds on
a long term community engagement on this topic, further catalyzed with
the publication of the paper 'ICANN's procedures and policies in the
light of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic values', as
commissioned by the Council of Europe, and after sessions held in
London, Los Angeles and Singapore. It seeks to improve ICANN's
measures to respect human rights in accordance with article 4 of
ICANN's articles of incorporation and and have established a programme
for corporate social responsibility.

Objective

The CCWP on ICANNs Corporate  and Social Responsibility to Respect
Human Rights  would have the purpose to raise awareness, provide
information, facilitate dialogue and make suggestions to ICANN the
corporation and the ICANN community on ways to better harmonize
ICANN’s policies and procedures with internationally recognized human
rights and corporate social responsibility standards, such as UN
Guiding Principles on Business and HUman Rights, the UN Global
Compact, and the European Commission and International Human Rights
and Business guidelines on implementation of the UN Guiding Principles
on Business and Human Rights for the ICT Sector. This specifically in
the context of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The
working party will focus on issues related to human rights that are
directly impacted by ICANN policy decisions, procedures and operations.

Responsibilities and scope of work

(i) To continue the process of raising awareness about the interplay
between ICANN’s policies, procedures and operations and corporate and
social responsibility issues, specifically with respect for human rights;

(ii) To map and collect information from the community about cases as
well as current ICANN policies, procedures and operations that present
an impact on the respect of human
rights in which further guidance on how to harmonize policies and
procedures with increased respect of human rights would be necessary;

(iii) To develop corporate and social responsibility guidelines for
the procedures that are in place or that should be created in the
policy development process to ensure specifically, but not limited to,
the respect for human rights;

(iv) To provide information, suggestions and recommendations to the
chartering organizations and to the broader ICANN community on how
ICANN’s policies and procedures can be
developed and implemented consistent with internationally recognized
standards. This input can inform the policy development processes as
defined in the ICANN Bylaws.

(v) To propose procedures and mechanisms with the aim of producing
assessments on if and how policies and procedures under development
and/or being implemented may impact on human rights.

(vi) Draft Position Papers and Statements as deemed appropriate

(vii) To carry out further discussions about the pertinence and timing
for the creation of a cross-community working group on this issue.

The membership of the CCWP on ICANNs Corporate  and Social
Responsibility to Respect Human Rights is proposed to include members
representing the diversity of the ICANN community. The Working Party
will serve as a focal point for the CSR discussion, knowledge
dissemination and communication about the impact of ICANN's policies
and procedures on corporate and social responsibility, specifically
related to Human Rights. Its activities will be conducted in an open
and fully transparent manner.





Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

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On 04/06/2015 06:27 PM, Niels ten Oever wrote:
> 
> On 04/06/2015 06:12 PM, Patrik Fältström wrote:
>>> By adding Corporate Social Responsibility to the work of this 
>>> working party we're expanding the scope far beyond human
>>> rights. Initially we have tried to make the scope smaller by
>>> only having a look at first generation human rights, and
>>> predominantly freedom of expression and the right to privacy
>>> and the impact ICANN has on them. CSR opens up the discussion
>>> on: The impact of a company on economic, environmental and
>>> social impacts caused by its everyday activities. These are a
>>> lot of different things, far beyond what was initially
>>> envisioned. Ranging from CO2 emisions, travel policy,
>>> transparency, renumeration, supply chain disclosure, I've been
>>> having a look at the best practices in CSR-land, and it is
>>> quite huge: https://www.globalreporting.org/
>> 
>> Yes, CSR is a VERY broad topic. One must scope it.
>> 
>>> If we manage to produce a report provuides an analysis and 
>>> recommendations based on the IHRB report [0] that Patrik 
>>> mentioned is, would for me be a perfect outcome of our work,
>>> but I am curious if people think we should go further.
>>> 
>>> Patrik mentioned that he wanted to include topics of labor in 
>>> this work, but that seems covered by the UN Guiding Principles
>>> on Business and Human Rights and are also addressed in the
>>> IHRB report.
>> 
>> No, I said we COULD do that.
>> 
>> I agree we must be scoped.
>> 
>>> So I just want to make sure that our scope is wide enough to 
>>> include everything we want to do, but narrow enough to keep it 
>>> manageable.
>>> 
>>> Currently I am not 100% sure if we are discussing semantics,
>>> or issues we want to tackle, it seems we are discussing the 
>>> difference between things that mean the same to me:
>> 
>> To me semantics.
> 
> Happy to hear this all. Let's work it out :)
>> 
>>> 1. CCWP on ICANN and Human Rights 2. CCWP on ICANNs Corporate 
>>> Responsibility to Respect Human Rights 3. CCWP on ICANN CSR 
>>> issues related to Human Rights
>>> 
>>> But I think that this has a far wider scope:
>>> 
>>> 4. CCWP on Corporate Social Responsibility for ICANN
>>> 
>>> And this email made me want to check with you Patrik if we're 
>>> talking about the same thing:
>>> 
>>> On 04/05/2015 04:42 PM, Patrik Fältström wrote:
>>>> I just do not want this to be a CCWG on Human Rights. It
>>>> should be on ICANN CSR issues related to Human Rights.
>>>> 
>>>> And once again, if I am alone in being sensitive on this
>>>> kind of wording, let me know. Then I rest my case ;-)
>>> 
>>> Looking forward to discuss!
>> 
>> So it is [3] above I am asking for, of your four alternatives.
>> 
>> But I understand the view of Bill that it might be viewed 
>> immediately as "ICANN as the corporation", so I can go with a
>> name of the CCWG that is as [1].
>> 
>> I will have a look at the document you produced online Niels.
>> 
>> Once again, I am sensitive to "Human Rights" as I very strongly
>> see Human Rights are agreements between states on what they MUST
>> do and what they MUST NEVER do. Everyone else is acting in that
>> context. For example by doing activities that forces States to
>> change their behavior. Or by acting in a specific way just
>> because States do misbehave (but one have to do things there
>> anyway).
>> 
>> It might have been teachers I have had that hammered this
>> possibly too drastic view into my brain...but there you are.
>> 
>> And still, I can view myself be in the minority here.
>> 
>> Patrik
>> 
> 
> Very happy to have your voice in this discussion Patrik (isn't
> human rights all about protecting minorities ;) ). Previously we
> noticed that as long as we were talking about Human Rights, people
> thought we were going to have ICANN as an advocacy organizations
> against torture. Adding 'ICANNs Corporate Responsibility to Respect
> Human Rights' made things much clearer for many people (and linked
> it very directly to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human
> Rights). So great to be able to test what is the best language to
> describe what we want to do.
> 
> There are indeed different obligations for states (that should
> protect human rights) and for other actors (that should respect
> human rights), which is both a responsibility.
> 
> It's just that CSR has become quite something of a marketing term
> for a lot of different things, so I would be afraid that it would
> create more confusion than it would solve. But if you think the
> opposite, what would you think of:
> 
> 5. CCWP on ICANNs Corporate Social Responsibility to respect Human 
> Rights ?
> 
> I think it would help deciding on this before I go edit the
> document.
> 
> Finally, Bill: do you think the issue about 'corporate' is more of
> an issue in CSR than in CR ? Because this was not brought up at
> the discussion in Singapore even though the title of the session
> was ICANNs Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights.
> 
> Looking forward to discuss.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Niels
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ cc-humanrights
> mailing list cc-humanrights at icann.org 
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-humanrights
> 

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