Hello Robin,
1. Discuss whether the existing draft policy actually reflects the
consensus view of the committee.
Agreed. This is the purpose of the meeting in 7 June. The
recommendations haven't come from thin air though. They are an output
of a series of face-to-face meetings where the recommendations were
developed and debated. Of course the people involved in those
meetings may have changed over time - so you will inevitably get new
perspectives.
However there has yet to be a formal vote - and I would like to at least
get some formality on the level of consensus we have on each of the
recommendations.
I certainly don't want to "rush" things - but I do want to converge on
some consensus recommendations - so at some point we do need to formally
vote, and identify which recommendations have consensus support. Of
course there is substantial staff work needed to convert these
recommendations into a practical RFP and practical dispute resolution
processes.
2. Accept input from neutral outside experts regarding how
this draft
policy tracks existing international legal standards for trademark
rights and free expression rights.
Not sure what you mean here. We accept input from anyone on the policy
process, or do you mean that you want staff to pay for a particular
piece of work? With respect to the latter, the staff are indeed
planning to get some outside expertise to see how to set up the various
dispute mechanisms that are indicated in the recommendations, and that
any dispute process will need to rely on international legal standards -
including those relating to free speech. I will ask Denise Michel to
provide an update on these plans.
3. In February, NCUC made a proposal to amend the draft policy
recommendation, and the draft has yet to deal with the NCUC
proposal in
any way.
http://www.ipjustice.org/ICANN/drafts/022207.html
I believe the NCUC submission was discussed during the meetings in
Marina Del Ray around 22 Feb 07 - perhaps you could refer to the audio
recording in the first instance. I do recall that you were on
teleconference for a significant part of that discussion though. The
transcript is available at:
http://www.gnso.icann.org/meetings/transcript-newgtls-mdr-22feb07.pdf
From memory I think it was agreed that the process would rely on
international law and would use outside bodies where possible that were
qualified to make judgements using international law. We want to avoid
ICANN making up its own rules in anything other than security and
stability issues, and then relying on staff to make judgements against
those rules.
We can certainly improve the recommendations and guidelines to make that
clear if you don't believe that is clear. I would certainly welcome
any text to assist in that area.
I think it would certainly be helpful to give some specific examples of
what we mean by "international law". My understanding is this is law
that has resulted from treaties signed by some countries - that in turn
have often incorporated the international law into their national laws.
So really we are identifying laws that have wide acceptance by
countries.
Regards,
Bruce Tonkin