Fwd: Charter drafts - and the related process so far

[Robin Gross]

Thanks, Carlos!   This hasn't posted yet to ICANN's site.  (It has to  
be confirmed by the sender before they post it).

A couple other people sent me their comments they were not able to  
get posted to ICANN's site.   Maybe we should look into the problem  
with posting comments for some people.

Thanks again,
Robin


On Jul 23, 2009, at 1:27 PM, Carlos Afonso wrote:

> 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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