[CCWG-ACCT] ICANN Board comments on Recommendation 6

Bruce Tonkin Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au
Tue Jan 26 20:16:32 UTC 2016


Hello All,

Markus gave a verbal summary of the current position of the Board following our Board call yesterday during the CCWG call.   I have set out the current position in writing below.

I recognize that the CCWG members did not accept the Board's position.   There are quite a few Board members on the call - and we can take this discussion back to the Board to see if we can find another solution.


(1) The Board is committed to upholding human rights as appropriate within ICANN's mission; and 

(2) The Board  intends to work alongside the community to progress the human rights work within ICANN, including through the development of a Human Rights Statement to reach a meaningful framework to guide human rights considerations within ICANN's mission.  

The Board still remains supportive of Option B, or allowing the WS2 effort on defining a framework to proceed prior to considering whether to include a human rights obligation in the Bylaws.

The Board understands that one of the reasons for the suggestion of a "dormant" bylaw text (which the Board remains concerned about for the reasons flagged earlier) is that there is concern among the community that if a reference to human rights is not included in the Bylaws, the Board will not follow through on a community wish to address this issue.  To address this concern, the Board proposes that including in the Bylaws a requirement for ICANN to address the human rights issue, as well as a requirement to consider - after a framework is concluded - how that should be referenced in the Bylaws.  The Board therefore proposes the following: 

In the Bylaws text referencing WS2, language should be included that specifically identifies that a recommended framework on human rights within ICANN is expected to be part of the WS2 effort.  Further, the Bylaws on WS2 should specify that If the cross-community group developing the framework also makes a consensus recommendation on whether and how that framework can be reflected in the ICANN Bylaws, the ICANN Board must consider that recommendation according to the process defined for considering those continuous improvement recommendations.

Regards,

Bruce Tonkin

ICANN Board liaison to the CCWG



More information about the Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list