[cc-humanrights] More comments.

zalnieriute . zalnieriute at gmail.com
Fri May 29 12:41:27 UTC 2015


Dear Marianne and Stephanie,

Thank You so much for all Your time spent for commenting on the draft - the
comments are indeed very useful, and I am incorporating Your suggestions
now. Thank You:)

Let's talk in 20 mins, and decide how we proceed further!

Best wishes,

Monika

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 6:15 PM, Marianne Franklin <m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk>
wrote:

>  Dear all
>
> Just wanted to say hello, rather late into this really interesting and
> productive conversation on this CCWP for ICANN. The thread was quite long
> and substantial so have had to take time to get up to speed; nothing like a
> long train-ride to enable that!.
>
> Being relatively new to ICANN at this level of work, it is quite
> encouraging to see how far this work has gone.
>
> I have not much to add in terms of the discussions around the title of the
> document, and also the symbolic and legally substantive issues around Human
> Rights as enshrined in international law and CSR. All the points raised are
> for a non-expert make sense.
>
> A couple of comments if I may though on the document as it is readied for
> circulation to the iCANN community; based on reading the penultimate draft
> but hopefully still relevant for the final tweaks, and future references.
>
> 1) The revised preamble/framing of this initiative for ICANN folk: this
> works pretty well now as long as there remains room for eventual inclusion
> of later human rights treaties and covenants that tend to drop off the list
> e.g. those on disability, the rights of women, rights of children etc.
> ICANN may want to, at this very early stage, restrict its thinking to
> privacy and freedom of expression, or focus on consumer rights at the
> expense of more inclusive human rights norms and keep stipulating this,
> particularly in terms of consumer rights and CSR frameworks. Nonetheless,
> revising this project in a way that continues to more inclusive is in the
> long term the right way to go even if there may be push-back: international
> human rights law and norms do not stop with the ICCPR and ICESCR, and norms
> change slowly over time as do legal instruments such as the UN Bill of
> Rights .... :) .
>
> a) So moving from there to the current introduction; where a clear
> distinction is made between protecting and respecting human rights. This
> makes sense so do make sure that the remaining references to 'protecting'
> human rights are redacted later in the document (e.g. page 18).
>
> b) That said and recalling point 1 above, the strong emphasis on how this
> initiative will only acknowledge"human rights content [that] is limited to
> internationally recognized human rights..." (page 8) strikes me as a bit
> too restrictive in that international recognition of the full range of
> human rights instruments that have been put in place since the UDHR varies
> across these treaties and covenants.
>
> This prominent place given to limitations and restrictions on which human
> rights instruments will be taken on board, even if for strategic purposes,
> This could in the future put this whole initiative on to the back foot as
> these "later" human rights instruments become relevant to ICANN's work.
>
> I am not a legal expert nor scholar of international human rights law but
> could this second limitation on page 8 perhaps be rephrased to accommodate
> just these nuances and in way that does not scare the horses (so to speak)
> but also does not shut the door for future developments. Not sure how to
> rephrase this but something like "human rights content refers specifically
> to recognized international human rights law and norms....."
>
> 2) The latter point affects what follows in the document and how different
> stakeholders will respond: So If I could just make one longer comment on
> the current text in light of comments related to the IRPC Charter. And, as
> some of you know, what comes next is from the point of view of the work of
> the IRP Coalition and its Charter of Human Rights and Principles of the
> Internet. This is mentioned, and referenced on page 12;
>
> It was suggested that the IRPC Charter does not have the requisite status
> because some of its Clauses "fall below international standards". The legal
> point - and ensuing debates - raised here notwithstanding (which Gabrielle
> provided for the IRPC Charter review at the 2014 IGF so they are well
> taken), I would like to note that seeing the IRPC Charter given its due
> place in the final draft confirms that these reservations need not preclude
> mention of the IRPC Charter in the context of this new opening for ICANN.
>
> This is because whatever the verdict on its content at present may be
> (Version 1.1) in the ICANN work the IRPC Charter is being rightly
> attributed its role as a foundational framework for thinking about human
> rights (broadly defined) within the more technically focused IG spaces -
> within and beyond ICANN. This is because it is arguably the first document
> that takes international law seriously as well as those more ethical though
> less legally rigorous positions advocated in civil society spaces i.e. the
> IRPC Charter links human rights (in toto) obligations for states to those
> articulated for corporations through CSR undertaking. For this reason alone
> it deserves this mention.
>
> What do I mean here? The critical points about some parts of the IRPC
> Charter referring to emerging rather than existing rights reach back to the
> earliest days of the IRPC Charter drafting process back in 2009; a period
> of starting out that saw discussions not unlike the ones we have had on
> this thread for the ICANN application of human rights in its work 5-6
> years, and several UN resolutions etc, later. But even with these
> imperfections the IRPC Charter, in its own terms a "living document"
> (taking its cue from the UDHR) is a formative part of the ethical and legal
> landscape in which this ICANN-based initiative has emerged.
>
> So good to see that the IRPC Charter reference is still there though could
> I suggest the following revision of this paragraph on page 12 for accuracy:
>
> "Within the framework of the Internet Governance Forum, the Internet
> Rights & Principles Coalition was created in 2009 with the mission
> “to make rights on the Internet and their related duties, specified
> from the point of view of individual users, a central theme of the internet
> governance debate held in the IGF context".  In 2010-11 the Internet Rights
> & Principles Coalition developed its Charter of Human Rights and Principles
> for the Internet, distilling its 21 clauses into 10 Rights and Principles
> for the Internet based on international human rights laws and norms.."
>
> 3) A minor editing point: Page 12, note 29 is incomplete so a minor edit
> could be "The IRPC Charter is available, in booklet form, in 8 languages,
> at http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/"
>
> 4) And on fiddly things like spelling and typos: Other edits too are
> needed to have consistent spelling (US or UK Spelling) and there are still
> some typos still need correcting.
>
> 5) On Stephanie's points about human rights scaring people; too true. So
> all the more reason for this initiative in ICANN to take courage; they
> scare not only the very states that are supposed to uphold them and in so
> doing protect their citizens, by law and in principle, but also powerful
> corporations, and ICANN is one, who too often fudge fundamental freedoms
> under CSR waffle or step back from "respecting" human rights in deed as
> well as words by appealing to the limits set on them by various sorts of
> national jurisdictions.. :)
>
> Will try and make the upcoming call tomorrow. Thanks Niels for all this
> great text-shepherding work.
>
> best wishes
> Marianne F
>
>
> On 27/05/2015 16:32, Niels ten Oever wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> For your information, please find the comments from Gabrielle attached.
> Would be great to see the comments from Stephanie as well.
>
> If we want to make this a product of the CCWP, it would be great to have
> a bit more people.
>
> Also happy to discuss this at our call on Friday.
>
> Best,
>
> Niels
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> Marianne Franklin, PhD
> Professor of Global Media and Politics
> Convener: Global Media & Transnational Communications Program
> Goldsmiths (University of London)
> Department of Media & Communications
> New Cross, London SE14 6NW
> Tel: +44 20 7919 7072<m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk> <m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk>
> @GloCommhttps://twitter.com/GloCommhttp://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/franklin/https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-global-media-transnational-communications/
> Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet)
> Steering Committee/Former Co-Chair Internet Rights & Principles Coalition (UN IGF)www.internetrightsandprinciples.org
> @netrights
>
>
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>


-- 
Dr. Monika Zalnieriute
Centre for Internet & Human Rights
European University Viadrina
Mittelweg 50, 12053 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: monika.zalnieriute at eui.eu
https://cihr.eu
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