Questions Re: Proposed new NCSG structure

[Norbert Klein]

On Tuesday, 14 October 2008 08:39:42 Cheryl Preston wrote:

[snip]

> Could you also clarify how you determine legitimacy for a non-US
> non-profit?
>
>
> Cheryl B. Preston
> Edwin M. Thomas
> Professor of Law
> J. Reuben Clark Law School
> Brigham Young University
> 434 JRCB
> Provo, UT 84602
> (801) 422-2312
> prestonc at lawgate.byu.edu

May respond from past experience, having worked over the past 18 years for
three non-US non-profits, and still continuing, all the time in Cambodia.

It is obvious that the fact that ICANN is a US/California based legal entity,
while serving concerns of a global nature, poses a number of questions for
which the standard legal instruments do not have ready-made answers.

In addition, the two summits organized by the United Nations in 2003 and
2005 - World Summits for the Information Society - have provided a platform
for the concerned international community to voice a number of concerns which
find an increasing international attention, though they do not have
appropriate legal answers in many respects, because answers have to be found
which can satisfy the concerns of the different manifestations of the
international information society. - Obviously this leads also to certain
tensions, because powerful economic interests with well developed legal
systems have to find ways to respectfully coexist with others in this world.

I worked first for some years in Cambodia for an "international NGO" when I
created the first Internet providing system in the country (of course without
any defined legal framework - so I took the initiative to discuss this with
the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication - and their top leadership was
happy that they then also had access to the Internet; legal regualtions
started to be developed only some years later). Our status? International
NGOs operated on the basis of a Memorandum of Understanding signed with the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This provided a very loosely described legal
framework - visas, work permits, importation of financial and other means
etc.

In later years, I changed to work with one, then with another Cambodian NGO
(which formed also the background for my involvement with the non-commercial
sectors in ICANN, reformulated during these years, and now again in the
process of reformulation).

Cambodia still does not have an NGO law - therefore also no detailed legal
definition of how a non-profit is described or monitored by the authorities.
When an NGO is formed and wants to have the possibility to do legal actions
(rent an office, etc.) an application is presented to the Ministry of
Interior, where the goals and the intended activities have to be described -
including that it is a non-profit. But many NGOs are involved in economic
activities - like organizing handicraft production for sale to provide income
for marginalized sectors of society - there is again no detailed monitoring
imposed by the Cambodian authorities in terms of the non-profit status. Those
organizations that receive international financial support have obligations,
however, to undertake different levels of auditing of their financial
performance, to satisfy their internatioinal donors.

This is a description of the context in which and from which I have worked,
and since 1999 participated in the non-commerical sector of ICANN. I know,
therefore, that there are very different situations in different countries
with different cultural and therefore also legal traditions.

The Declaration of Principles of the first of the two WSIS events says:

Our Common Vision of the Information Society

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-centred, 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.

That is a very good basis for our work, whenever we see that we work in a
world which has not created regulations to cover all the details everywhere,
which may be, or may not be regulated in similar ways somewhere else.


Norbert Klein


--
If you want to know what is going on in Cambodia,
please visit us regularly - you can find something new every day:

http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com (English)
http://kanhchoksangkum.wordpress.com (Khmer)