[gnso-igo-ingo] Protection of the RCRC designations - RCRC comments

[Stephane Hankins <shankins@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear Thomas, dear all, 

(1) Further to your request, we would like herewith to reiterate the Red 
Cross and Red Crescent position that the protections of the red cross, red 
crescent red lion and sun and red crystal designations be recognized, and 
implemented preventively, within ICANN's mechanisms, rules and agreements 
at both top and second level. This would conform to the requirements of 
international humanitarian law - the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and 
their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005. 

As regards the preventive mechanisms in place and in light of some of the 
debates held yesterday during the WG call, we would like to recall once 
more that this is not just an issue of fees, for which a waiver or 
coverage could it seems be considered, but also one of the monitoring and 
control burden that a reactive/curative approach would represent for the 
Red Cross and Red Crescent organisations. The prohibitions under the 
aforementioned Conventions on misuse or unauthorized use of the 
designations are in this regard clear and should be enforced. We will 
await of course the forthcoming opinion of ICANN's Legal Council, but it 
should obviously be borne in mind that the primary treaties concerned were 
adopted at a time - 1949 - when the Internet did not exist, and that their 
formulations could hardly be expected at the time to expressly and 
specifically address the issue of the registration of domain names. The 
same holds true of the national implementating legislation for the 1949 
Geneva Conventions in force in many national jurisdictions.

(2) As to the issue of acronyms of organizations, as we mentioned during 
the last conference call, it might indeed be required from a general 
perspective to seek to define criteria for their protection and 
reservation, based for example, besides protection under international law 
and/or the domestic law in multiple jurisdictions, on international 
recognition, commonality of usage and/or the level to which the concerned 
organizations are identified and known by their acronym. One example is 
the acronym of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC, CICR, 
MKKK) which enjoys a high level of recognition and is used and referred to 
in a number of past resolutions adopted by the International Conference of 
the Red Cross and Red Crescent, in which all States parties to the Geneva 
Conventions (195 to date, following the recent accession by the Republic 
of South Sudan) participate as full members. It should also be noted that 
the acronym is also and furthermore an integral part of the ICRC's 
official logo (copied below). 


Considering that indeed these acronyms, including the acronym of the 
International Federation (IFRC), are not per se protected under 
international humanitarian law treaties and may be in use by other 
organizations, we would agree with the suggestion that the acronyms be 
subject, when applied for in a second-level domain name, to some form of 
"exception process" or "dispute resolution procedure" for applicants 
claiming to have a legitimate interest in registering the acronyms (a 
procedure for which however appropriate criteria would need to be 
defined).   

(3) Further to past discussions within the group, we are in the process of 
verifying a table of the names of National Red Cross or Red Crescent 
Societies which would require protection, together with the names 
"International Committee of the Red Cross" and "International Federation 
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies" and their acronyms, and thus in 
addition to the designations of the emblems protected under international 
humanitarian law ("Red Cross", "Red Crescent", "Red Lion and Sun" and "Red 
Crystal"). Another solution would indeed be to consider to provide for a 
String Similarity review by key word, thus allowing to cover all strings 
including the aforementioned designations. 

(4) As we have mentioned in the past, limiting the reservations and the 
reserved names list to exact matches of the designations and of the names 
of the Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations to exact matches would not 
fully suit the requirements of the protections as they are defined under 
international humanitarian law, which also prohibit imitations. A String 
Similarity mechanism would thus be warranted at the top level and, as far 
as technically feasible, at the second level in order to prevent the 
registration of names/strings which are confusingly similar. 

(5) Lastly, regarding the proposed protection matrix circulated before 
last week's call, we would like to recommend that the RCRC entry in Column 
4, Tab “TOP LEVEL”, as well as the tab “SECOND LEVEL”, be revised to 
include a reference to “multiple national laws”.  

We remain available to discuss any of the points described above. 

With best regards, 

Stéphane J. Hankins
Legal adviser
Cooperation and coordination within the Movement
International Committee of the Red Cross
Tel (direct line): ++0041 22 730 24 19 

Christopher M. Rassi 
Senior Legal Officer 
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 
Chemin des Crêts, 17 | 1209 Petit Saconnex | Geneva | Switzerland 
Tel. +41 (0)22 730 4536 | Fax +41 (0)22 733 0395 
Email christopher.rassi@xxxxxxxx 


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