Fwd: transcript of Portugal's intervention in GAC/GNSO meeting ICANN43

[Robin Gross]

Begin forwarded message:
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> -------- Original Message --------
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> [transcript in English of Portugal's intervention in the GAC/GNSO meeting at ICANN43]
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> PORTUGAL: Thank you very much.
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> I will be speaking in Portuguese, if you don't mind using the translation system.
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> In the first place, I would also like to thank the GNSO's work in terms of the response to the GAC decision on this regard. That is why of the names associated to the IOC and the Red Cross, actually there has been a lot of contribution to move forward to the point - ‐- ‐ from the point we were at at that point in time. It is also our opinion that the report is clear enough and reasonable, and it's in a good direction to go forward in terms of first- ‐ or second- ‐level protection of the names associated to these two organizations.
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> The point I would like to bring forward for discussion is, however, something of a different nature. This is associated to the way organizations can voice their objections and how to identify them. We understand that an organization that deals with public policy cannot indicate the purpose of its own policies by pointing out the name of the organizations the policy applies to, because this would be a discriminatory approach. We understand that the right way to do it is to indicate the characteristics of the organizations rules may apply to. We saw the U.S. remark a few minutes ago that the documentation initially given by GAC made reference to the baseline reasons to choose these two organizations. These baseline reasons have the issue that they are not transferred to objective application criteria, so additional effort is required to define them, but it is still a baseline.
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> The document, however, is the one that we need to abide by, the Applicant Guidebook that has not gathered any contribution as to the baseline definition of these organizations. And the only thing it does talk about is that these two organizations have positive discrimination because their names are protected. And even when now, if now the world choose these two organizations to make these requirements, which we doubt it is like that, I don't think there are just these two worldwide, what can happen is that anytime some other organization may come up that does meet the requirements and so the scenario defined by the law should not be limited by the names they have. I think this is critical not just for a question of principle, not just principle and rules and regulations of an organization that a public- ‐policy agency has to abide by, but also for practical reasons, ICANN's liability of coming - ‐- ‐ anytime any entity may come up that it meets these two requirements and that it has not been given the same treatment, that is something we should be careful about. This is a present risk. It is a current risk.
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> Portugal's opinion is not the GAC's opinion, but Portugal's opinion, because it was not agreed as GAC's opinion, that these efforts should pursue two directions. One, the efforts with a good result in the GNSO in the sense of specifying technical conditions as to protecting the names of the IOC and the Red Cross, and there is another effort that needs to be pursued. That is how to define the characteristics and way objective application criteria should be defined to say which universe is to apply these rules. And that should not be the specific names of these two organizations.
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> Thank you very much.
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