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

[Thomas Rickert <rickert@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Stéphane, all,
thank you for your e-mail and thanks to Chuck and Robin for responding. Can I 
ask more WG members to respond to this, please? 

Thanks,
Thomas

=============
thomas-rickert.tel
+49.228.74.898.0

Am 19.04.2013 um 14:58 schrieb Stephane Hankins <shankins@xxxxxxxx>:

> Dear Thomas, dear all, 
> 
> Further to last Wednesday’s Conference call, we would like to share with you 
> below some of our thoughts and positions on the various proposals now under 
> consideration by the Working Group. 
> 
> (1) We appreciate firstly that the Group appears to be in agreement on a 
> differentiated approach and consideration of the respective cases for 
> protection under its consideration, namely IGO’s, the IOC, the Red Cross and 
> Red Crescent, and INGO’s. As you will recall, it has been a consistent 
> concern from our side that the sui generis case for protection and 
> reservation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent designations and names be 
> distinguished and examined in their own right, and thus considering the 
> particular protection of these designations and names under universally 
> agreed international humanitarian law treaties and the legislation in force 
> in multiple jurisdictions. 
> 
> (2) At the top and second level, we ask that: 
> 
> -        the current moratorium on the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red 
> Crystal designations be made permanent in all new gTLD’s and for all future 
> rounds, as recently confirmed by the GAC in its advice to ICANN’s Board on 
> the occasion of the recent Beijing Meeting; 
> 
> -        it be confirmed, consistent with our recent submissions, that the 
> protections already recognized to the Red Cross and Red Crescent designations 
> extend not only to the 29 designations expressly listed in the Applicant 
> Guidebook and revised Registry Agreement, but also to the full names of the 
> respective Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations (such as the names 
> “British Red Cross”, “Afghan Red Crescent”, “International Committee of the 
> Red Cross” or “International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent 
> Societies”). A full list of names of the respective Red Cross and Red 
> Crescent organizations can be made available; 
> 
> -        the designations and names of the Red Cross and Red Crescent remain 
> available for registration as domain names for the respective Red Cross or 
> Red Crescent organizations (e.g. through inclusion on a Modified Reserved 
> List). As noted in our past communications to the Group, the risk of claims 
> or contests emanating from organizations outside of the International Red 
> Cross and Red Crescent Movement would be virtually null, as the number of 
> organizations duly authorized under international law (and domestic laws) to 
> make use of the Red Cross or Red Crescent designations for indicative 
> purposes is finite and specified under relevant international treaties (the 
> instance of grand-fathered use is strictly constrained under relevant 
> international treaties; the respective Red Cross or Red Crescent 
> organizations are not entitled to "licence" the designations or their names); 
> 
> -        should the need be felt, we would not oppose the notion of 
> safeguards or of a consent based exception procedure for demonstrated rights 
> holders, as has been proposed within the Group, and thus in particular with 
> regard to the acronyms of Red Cross or Red Crescent organizations. 
> 
> As noted in past exchanges with the Group, the acronyms of the two 
> international organizations within the International Red Cross and Red 
> Crescent Movement, namely those of the International Committee of the Red 
> Cross (ICRC/CICR) and of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red 
> Crescent Societies (IFRC), are today well established and their association 
> with both organizations widely recognized, including in the context of 
> Resolutions adopted by States at the International Conferences of the Red 
> Cross and Red Crescent. We would agree that the registration of the said 
> acronyms into the TMCH could offer a viable option, subject however to the 
> confirmation that 
> §        the said acronyms are eligible to be registered under the TMCH; and 
> that 
> §        the respective Red Cross or Red Crescent organizations enjoy 
> standing to activate subsequent objection mechanisms and enjoy a waiver of 
> fees in registering under the TMCH and in resorting, as may be required, to 
> objection procedures.   
> 
>    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 
> 
> 
> ----- Forwarded by Stephane Hankins/DC_MOUV_CHF/GVA/ICRC on 19.04.2013 13:20 
> ----- 
> 
> From:        Stephane Hankins/DC_MOUV_CHF/GVA/ICRC 
> To:        gnso-igo-ingo@xxxxxxxxx, Thomas Rickert <rickert@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
> Cc:        "Christopher RASSI (christopher.rassi@xxxxxxxx)" 
> <christopher.rassi@xxxxxxxx>, "Debra.Hughes@xxxxxxxxxxxx" 
> <Debra.Hughes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Catherine Gribbin 
> <Catherine.Gribbin@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
> Date:        11.03.2013 18:41 
> Subject:        [gnso-igo-ingo] Protection of the RCRC designations - RCRC 
> comments 
> 
> 
> 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). 
> 
> <ATT-3.dat>
> 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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