[cc-humanrights] Request for comments on ICANN's CCWG Accountability draft proposal

[Niels ten Oever]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Dear all,

I hope this email finds you well. Most of you have probably followed
the discussions and progress on the transitioning of the oversight
over ICANN from the US government to the global Internet community.
One of the two processes to make this happen is the improvement of
ICANN's accountability.

As you know, with a lot of hard work from the civil society people in
ICANN in WP4, and in collaboration with other constituencies, we have
managed to include in the proposed plan.a change to ICANN's bylaws to
include a commitment to respect human rights, as well as an interim
bylaw which demands the development of a framework for interpretation
and implementation of ICANN's human rights commitment.

The inclusion of the commitment to human rights will only happen if
the plan and the bylaw get approved. For this I would like to ask your
support.

I would like to ask you to submit a public comment in support for the
human rights bylaw, which is defined in Annex 6 [0] of the draft
report [1]. The comment period is open for public comment (up to
December 21, 23:59 UTC)

The process of sending in a comment in easy: simply write an email to:
comments-draft-ccwg-accountability-proposal-30nov15 at icann.org

I know this time of the year is quite busy, and therefore Tatiana
Tropina and I have prepared a sample email for you below which you can
simply copy and paste in an email and add your organization at the
beginning of paragraph 1 and 2 and send it off. But if you would like
to write your own comment you're of course more than invited to do so.

Best,

Niels

[0]
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/draft-ccwg-accountability-pr
oposal-annex-6-30nov15-en.pdf
[1]
https://www.icann.org/public-comments/draft-ccwg-accountability-proposal
- -2015-11-30-en

__________________SAMPLE COMMENT_______________________

<<YOUR ORGANIZATION>> appreciates the opportunity to submit comments
on the CCWG-Accountability Draft Work Stream 1 Recommendations. We
would like to thank the CCWG on Accountability for its hard work in
compiling this report. This is a crucial step in the transition of the
oversight over ICANN from the US government to the global community,
which is generally welcomed.

<<YOUR ORGANIZATION>> especially welcomes the inclusion of the bylaw
language reaffirming and clarifying ICANN’s obligation to respect
human rights.

We find the proposal for bylaw language on human rights to be clear
and balanced. We appreciate the fact that it limits the commitment to
ICANN's mission and operations only and provides a clear distinction
between ICANN's adherence to respect human rights and obligation to
enforce human rights, placing the latter outside of the scope of the
ICANN's mission.

We are aware of the discussions on the inclusion of particular human
rights related international legal instruments, such as Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), into the bylaw
language. We welcome the proposed version of the bylaw language, which
does not refer to particular international legal instruments. In our
view, there is no need to outline specific international documents in
the bylaws since there is no reason in principle why particular
instruments (e.g. the UDHR) should be referenced at the expense of
other important international treaties.

At the same time, we agree that the issues related to the
applicability of international instruments in the context of ICANN's
commitment to
respect human rights must be addressed in Work Stream 2. We strongly
support the proposal to include the interim bylaw for the purpose of
ensuring that Work Stream 2, which will facilitate the development of
the framework for interpretation of the human rights commitment, will
take place.

We further agree with the issues identified in Annex 6 of the Draft
which will be the subject of further work in Workstream 2.

We hope that Workstream 2 will be carried out in the same
collaborative, inclusive and open manner as the whole work of CCWG up
to now and will result in a clear framework for interpretation and
implementation of ICANN's commitment to human rights.

- -- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

PGP fingerprint    8D9F C567 BEE4 A431 56C4
                   678B 08B5 A0F2 636D 68E9


- -- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

PGP fingerprint    8D9F C567 BEE4 A431 56C4
                   678B 08B5 A0F2 636D 68E9
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJWZ/jhAAoJEAi1oPJjbWjpeAkH/0xxqJ0lp8z0xQ33pV0Yl6OC
RzQmgje5b33OtFO47RF38lSi4DhXsEeE7QhljUucDF+w0cIEqbb1Ea19ED0lZM/B
BcjfByEaM3NyWdebxHYo8U4oTyu21VygQF31st1lb9H2tocK7mLrITuRCi91hEnc
erOE4/Zq4b3R078cMaVHaEa/AkSPI1CFSAGO2t5KbGtrvqRyWOlFRViHdw7PBM2L
HNHTxTThHO21L8AHPjydecCzQ8ybbuK0/U4Z6ehxoiTUXdaJRBiDEXXwgp/8Xms3
bJIGIFjhTv6xi3/duvMTDOpZd7hGaxmpURMjrI9EFdB5Jwm0K8iT4+YCEF9W9IM=
=nRPu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----