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<font face="Arial">Ok, mine too :o) </font><br>
<br>
Kathy Kleiman wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4A68CC44.3050407@KathyKleiman.com" type="cite">Mine
are in too!
<br>
Kathy
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I've just sent mine as well, but Norbert's is
far better! :)
<br>
<br>
[]s fraternos
<br>
<br>
--c.a.
<br>
<br>
Norbert Klein wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">FYI
<br>
<br>
Norbert Klein
<br>
<br>
=
<br>
<br>
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
<br>
Subject: Charter drafts - and the related process so far
<br>
Date: Friday, 24 July 2009 (Cambodia time - USA: 23 July)
<br>
From: Norbert Klein <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nhklein@gmx.net"><nhklein@gmx.net></a>
<br>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gnso-stakeholder-charters@icann.org">gnso-stakeholder-charters@icann.org</a>
<br>
<br>
Though I have seen that many voices from different parts of the world
have sent in their support for the original proposal, prepared within
the Non-Commercial Users Constituency in an intensive process of online
and international Internet communication, in which we received an
overwhelming – an almost unanimous consensus – I thought it might not
be important to state this again. <br>
But I write because I am utterly surprised that – in spite of this
process of wide and open consultation – the result of this process was
sidelined so far. The litany of “bottom-up consensus building,” which
is in so many official ICANN statements, became more and more hollow
over the years.
<br>
<br>
I say so as a person who was involved in the pre-ICANN efforts – the
1998 Singapore meeting - and since 1999 – Santiago de Chile – I fairly
regularly did participate in ICANN affairs, the “ICANN fellowship” as I
felt it was, in the early years – learning a lot for my efforts to
start the first Internet connection in Cambodia, creating the country
code .kh in 1996 and administering it until 1998, and continuing to be
involved in the UNICODE codification of the Khmer script and then the
localization of software etc.
<br>
<br>
Over the years, our situation seemed to get more and more into the
background of the ICANN dynamics – but WSIS 1 and 2 were an
encouragement, when the Declaration of Principles of WSIS 1 said:
<br>
<br>
“We, the representatives of the peoples of the world, assembled in
Geneva from 10-12 December 2003 for the first phase of the World Summit
on the Information Society, declare our common desire and commitment to
build a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information
Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share
information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and
peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable
development and improving their quality of life, premised on the
purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and
respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.”
<br>
<br>
Instead of a “people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented
Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and
share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and
peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable
development and improving their quality of life,” I do not see much of
this vision in ICANN's efforts to secure the stability and security of
the network.
<br>
<br>
This vision has been held up especially in the Non-Commercial Users
Constituency and in the At-Large structures, where the people-centered,
inclusive activities have their representation, and where they hope to
be supported, so that the purposes and principles of the UN Declaration
of Human Rights will be kept central in our operations.
<br>
<br>
The details for this are well stated in what the Non-Commercial Users
Constituency has elaborated and presented before – as the result of a
wide participatory process. I do not need to repeat it – I only hope
that the members of the ICANN Board will really take note of this and
not pass quickly to some “pragmatic” suggestions which are not based on
the principles on which we started to cooperate.
<br>
<br>
I want, however, highlight one aspect where I see a grave failure in
the process, where the Non-Commercial Users Constituency – on the basis
of what the organizations and persons here cooperating – thought to be
important. We raised it repeatedly, but we remained without an answer.
When the discussions about new gTLD touched on the restrictions to be
considered, the NCUC raised the question that such restrictions must be
included against efforts to erode the fundamental rights (as stated
above) - the protection of rights for this new developments. Many of us
live in environments where this is crucial. Instead the problem of
“generally accepted legal norms of morality and public order” became
more prominent, and the repeated official requests by the NCUC Chair to
the staff, how the staff identifies these principles, supposedly
“recognized under international principles of law,” did never get an
official response.
<br>
<br>
Many of those who are not part of the larger technical or economic
bodies cooperating in ICANN, but who live somewhere “on the periphery,”
need that ICANN finds again ways to live up to the “bottom-up
principle” for our social development and – in some cases – for our
survival. <br>
The Non-Commercial Users Constituency, built up from the bottom, is an
important instrument for this. The new move I read a while ago, that a
WIPO initiative is accepted as the basis for a revision of the UDRP –
without considering immediately what this means in terms of a bottom-up
process – is a sign that the fundamental orientation of ICANN – from
the point of view of its world wide membership – not from those who
control it – remains a most important task. The non-commercial and the
at-large users are the most important basis for giving bottom-up
orientation. <br>
<br>
Norbert Klein
<br>
<br>
<br>
Open Institute Phnom Penh/Cambodia
<br>
Member of the NCUC
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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