Dear All,

I am reaching out to you on behalf of the co-chair of the GAC Human Rights International Law Working Group (HRILWG), Suada Hadzovic, regarding the submission of the FY24 GAC ABR on Sign Language Interpretation (LIS) at ICANN Meetings- Preliminary Research and Pilot Project.

Because the Planning section of the FY24 ABR Google Form is limited to the table format, leaving little space for additional content, please find below information that the GAC HRILWG wishes to share as an annex to Planning section of the FY24 GAC ABR proposal:

Annex to the Planning Section of the FY24 ABR

The text below can be used as a guide when planning and is extracted from the Interpreter Guidelines for UN: 

• Interpreters are working to support the human rights of Deaf people. The role of the interpreter is to interpret between people who use a signed language and a spoken language and provide complete and accurate information both to Deaf and hearing people. In order to work effectively as an interpreter it is important that the interpreter focus on impartially performing their interpreting work. Interpreters provide interpretation including all of the content, contextual information in order to realize the communication goals of the persons involved in the interaction and improve conditions for productive communication to both sides.
• Sign languages are the preferred languages of the majority of deaf people. Sign languages are languages in their own right and each country has its own national sign language, i.e., sign language is not universal. Many countries who share the same official spoken language still have different sign languages (e.g., each Spanish-speaking country has its own distinct sign language). Countries with more than one official language often have more than one sign language (e.g., Canada, Belgium, Switzerland). The Governments of many countries have either directly or indirectly recognised their national sign language, and training for interpreters may be available on the university level. However, in numerous countries, especially in the developing world, a corps of professional sign language interpreters does not yet exist.
• International Sign is not a true language, in the sense that it does not always convey the richness of meaning that can be expressed in a full language, nor is it as efficient as a natural language. However, International Sign has evolved naturally over the past century to serve deaf people who have become more active in international cooperation. International Sign has certainly been used when there is no option of providing interpreting services in every national sign language represented at a meeting, and it has proven very effective when the participants from different countries meet in conferences where the vocabulary has become fairly conventionalised (like the WFD Congresses, meetings of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Human Rights Council, and the Conference of States Parties to the CRPD).
• CART (Computer Assisted Real Time) captioning services on the screen need to stay as a supplement to interpreting. The great advantage of real time captioning is that all the delegates in the meeting, for many of whom English is also their third, fourth, or fifth language, will benefit from the captioning, whether they are hearing or deaf (as is often true, accommodations for disabled people often benefit their non-disabled colleagues).

INTERPRETER QUALIFICATIONS

• For national sign language interpreters, the interpreter should have certification/accreditation from the country of the sign language, if available (as some countries have not yet instituted certification procedures)

INTERPRETER TEAMS

• As with spoken language interpreters, national sign language interpreters work in teams so as to ensure a quality interpretation and to avoid mental or physical fatigue.

TYPICAL WORK PRACTICES

• For any event a minimum of two interpreters should be booked. Depending on the duration, complexity and participants of the event, the team strength should be expanded. Like spoken language interpreters, sign language interpreters typically work in teams, each interpreter working for 15-20 minute periods of time in order to maximize the accuracy and the effectiveness of the interpretation.
• Interpreters need regular breaks during the event. For full day conferences, the interpreting team should include interpreters who can work during the conference breaks so that deaf delegates and participants may network and conduct short meetings outside of the conference proceedings. This will sometimes mean teams of 3 or 4 interpreters working a single conference in a day to cover not only the formal conference, but also networking during breaks and covering side events before and after the agenda of the conference.
• All these general principles will be transformed into procedures during the course of the test, in close cooperation with ICANN’s Language Services Department and with the Meetings Team regarding in order to ensure a proper promotion of the service within the ICANN community.

Thank you for taking this annex into consideration during the GAC ABR review process.

Best regards,

Julia Charvolen

On behalf of the GAC HRILWG Co-Chair