RE: [gnso-igo-ingo] Draft paragraph for temporary agreement on qualifying criteria

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alain's questions under 1) below align very closely to my questions about 
ECOSOC organizations.

Chuck

From: owner-gnso-igo-ingo@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-igo-ingo@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Alain Berranger
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 5:07 PM
To: Avri Doria
Cc: GNSO IGO INGO
Subject: Re: [gnso-igo-ingo] Draft paragraph for temporary agreement on 
qualifying criteria

Avri,

3 quick points:

1) "I see the ECOSOC accreditation for general consultative status as relevant 
as any other criteria, perhaps more so - there are only 146 of these..  I have 
seen the process organizations go through to get this accreditation.  It is not 
easy and it is not quick  and it requires the approval of the States that sit 
on the Council."

Please share why you see it as relevant? Does being on the lsit indicate the 
need to receive a priviledge like what we are discussing? Is being on the list 
a guarantee that the listed NGOs are working for the public interest and/or 
producing public goods and services? How does one NGO argue it represents civil 
society? Many are self-appointed!!!!

2) "...and while APC is a member of the APC..."

You probably meant APC is a member of the NCSG..., right?

 3) "...it requires the approval of the States that sit on the Council.

For the multitude of NGOs seen as ennemies of the states or of governments, I 
do not think that a state's approval is that impartial or even relevant? it may 
even be totally subjective!... (Under Mubarak, a new NGO law in Egypt was 
regressive and clearly  intended to muzzle freedom of speech and in certain 
cases put NGO leaders in prison... and some even died there...)  but we are 
looking for a list with some degree of objectivity... In fact, the UN system is 
biased in favor of governments in general (where most of their budget comes 
from) and is notorious for being un-at-ease with multistakeholder models  like 
ICANN's that theoretically put governments, private sector and civil society on 
equal footing... Look at ITU where governments come first, private sector 
second and civil society last...

Alain
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 4:29 PM, Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx<mailto:avri@xxxxxxx>> 
wrote:

Hi,

I see the ECOSOC accreditation for general consultative status as relevant as 
any other criteria, perhaps more so - there are only 146 of these..  I have 
seen the process organizations go through to get this accreditation.  It is not 
easy and it is not quick  and it requires the approval of the States that sit 
on the Council.

avri

Note: as I mentioned in the chat, I am an associate member and volunteer staff 
member of an organization that has ECOSOC general consultative accreditation 
and considers it an important thing.  I have never consulted this organization, 
Association for Progressive Communications (APC),  as to whether they feel the 
need for name or acronym protection.  I participate in this WG as a NCSG 
member, and while APC is a member of the APC, never thought of them as possibly 
benefiting from this extra protection until today when we started talking about 
ECOSOC coincidental with a week when I am trying to get my ECOSOC UN grounds' 
pass.

On 6 Mar 2013, at 15:03, Alain Berranger wrote:

> I do not think the ECOSOC list  is of much relevance to this exercise. It is 
> a relatively exclusive or even ad-hoc club of NGOs that work with the UN or 
> have collaborated with the UN at some point in their history. It lists over 
> 3000 NGOs - way too much for the kind of priviledges we are discussing and 
> not necessarely representative of the millions of NGOs in the world. This 
> list offers no  reassurance of some kind of international status (like the 
> Red Crescent Society of Algeria is on the list but not the Red Crescent 
> Society of Morocco or Tunisia - I don't see the IFRC there - maybe not 
> looking at the right place as the public list is not searchable... how does 
> that make sense for our purpose here?). It is almost an arbitrary list....of 
> "friends" of the UN.... a little like those on Facebook who have 3000 
> "friends".... Or to put it differenty perhaps, there are hundreds of 
> thousands of NGOs, probably more, with generous and worthwhile public good 
> missions not on this lis!
 t...
>
> Alain
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 12:55 PM, 
> <Mary.Wong@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Mary.Wong@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> Draft of working framework for qualifying criteria - to be further discussed 
> (including added to or changed, if appropriate) upon discussion of possible 
> protection mechanisms:
>
> "The Working Group (WG) agrees that the following is a general description 
> and starting point for final resolution of the types of organizations that 
> may qualify for protection mechanisms (if any). The WG believes that it would 
> be useful, in coming to a final resolution of qualifying criteria, to park 
> the issue for now in order to discuss possible protection mechanisms, which 
> discussion may inform the WG's deliberations over qualifying criteria. The WG 
> intends to return to the issue of qualifying criteria at an appropriate point 
> in its discussions of possible protection mechanisms.
>
> The basic ground upon which either an IGO or INGO may qualify for specific 
> protections is that an organization has a mission that is in the global 
> public interest and whose operations are international in scope. The WG 
> acknowledges that it is extremely difficult to define the global public 
> interest and it may be that it would be inappropriate for either it or ICANN 
> to attempt to do so. Nevertheless, the WG agrees that the following factors 
> may serve as indications that a particular organization would qualify for 
> protection:
>
> (1) The organization, its names, acronyms and (where applicable) its 
> designation are protected by an international treaty; or
> (2) The organization, its names, acronyms and (where applicable) its 
> designation are protected by national laws in multiple jurisdictions, and its 
> organizational mission is recognized through inclusion on the ECOSOC list of 
> general consultative NGOs (or similar list)."
>
> Cheers
> Mary
>
> Mary W S Wong
> Professor of Law
> Director, Franklin Pierce Center for IP
> Chair, Graduate IP Programs
> UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SCHOOL OF LAW
> Two White Street
> Concord, NH 03301
> USA
> Email: mary.wong@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:mary.wong@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Phone: 1-603-513-5143<tel:1-603-513-5143>
> Webpage: http://www.law.unh.edu/marywong/index.php
> Selected writings available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) 
> at:http://ssrn.com/author=437584
>
>
>
>
>
>




--
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
Member, Board of Directors, CECI, 
http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, 
www.schulich.yorku.ca<http://www.schulich.yorku.ca>
Treasurer, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation, 
www.gkpfoundation.org<http://www.gkpfoundation.org>
NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, 
www.chasquinet.org<http://www.chasquinet.org>
Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger


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