Fwd: Charter drafts - and the related process so far

[Robin Gross]

You guys all really ROCK!!   Thanks very much for weighing-in on this  
important issue!
   gnso-stakeholder-charters at icann.org

Best,
Robin


On Jul 23, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Ginger Paque wrote:

> Ok, mine too :o)
>
> Kathy Kleiman wrote:
>>
>> Mine are in too!
>> Kathy
>>
>>> I've just sent mine as well, but Norbert's is far better! :)
>>>
>>> []s fraternos
>>>
>>> --c.a.
>>>
>>> Norbert Klein wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> FYI
>>>>
>>>> Norbert Klein
>>>>
>>>> =
>>>>
>>>> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
>>>> Subject: Charter drafts - and the related process so far
>>>> Date: Friday, 24 July 2009 (Cambodia time - USA: 23 July)
>>>> From: Norbert Klein <nhklein at gmx.net>
>>>> To: gnso-stakeholder-charters at icann.org
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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:
>>>>
>>>> “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.”
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> Norbert Klein
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Open Institute Phnom Penh/Cambodia
>>>> Member of the NCUC
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>




IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org



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