[cc-humanrights] Blog Post on Webinar

[Niels ten Oever]

Hi all,

Lee Hibbard produced a nice blogpost about the webinar we co-organized
with CCWP HR, ARTICLE 19 and the CoE.

Best,

Niels

Blog
ICANN webinar : Community consensus on the need for change regarding
community-based new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

18 January 2017
Organised by ARTICLE 19, the Council of Europe, and the Cross
Community Working Party on ICANNs Corporate and Social Responsibility to
Respect Human Rights

Further information including the agenda and slide presentations can be
found here: http://icannhumanrights.net

The Council of Europe report on Applications to ICANN for
Community-based new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) – Opportunities
and challenges from a human rights perspective was presented. Its
authors, Eve Solomon and Kinanya Pijl, raised concerns regarding the
policies and procedures for community objections (i.e. inconsistency in
who has standing to object, opaque decision making) and community
priority evaluations (i.e. uncertainty in appealing the decisions of the
Economic Intelligence Unit).

Chris Disspain, ICANN Board member considered it to be a valuable source
of information and reference for ICANN as it moves forward, especially
for the work of the GNSO on new gTLD Subsequent Procedures.

Mark Carvell, Vice-Chair elect to the GAC, emphasized the importance of
generic top-level domains as a means for communities to exercise their
freedom of expression and to assemble and associate. The perspective of
human rights helps to restore the vision and purpose of communities in
the ICANN process. Mark Carvell continued by stating that the Council of
Europe report should be considered in the development of the next round
of gTLDs.

Concerns were expressed about the treatment of community applications in
the ICANN process. Cherine Chalaby, ICANN Board member, underlined the
need for an adequate rationale in dealing with all community applicants.
 Avri Doria, Co-chair to the GNSO working group on subsequent gTLD
procedures, considered the pre-screening of community applicants.

ICANN’s accountability to communities, which are part of the
multi-stakeholder Internet community, necessitates dialogue between
ICANN staff and applicants. The desire to provide feedback was
underlined by Constantine Roussos.

In summary, it was generally agreed that ICANN’s policies and procedures
should be as clear, fair, reasonable and transparent as possible in
order to reduce inconsistency, increase predictability, ensure due
process, eliminate discrimination and deter potential gaming. Patrick
Penninckx, Council of Europe, welcomed the discussions and underlined
that his Organisation stands ready to continue the dialogue in ICANN58.





-- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

PGP fingerprint    2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488
                   643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cc-humanrights/attachments/20170202/48e7535e/signature.asc>