Dear Colleagues, As announced during our last call, the co-Chairs have reviewed where we are on this issue. Our group is tasked to work on the basis of consensus, and we have focused on assessing where this condition was met. It is our conclusion that : 1) our group has achieved consensus on including a human rights related Commitment in Icann's Bylaws. 2) no particular wording currently proposed achieved consensus. As a consequence, we propose to include into the public comment 2 report (in the Mission & Core value section, a draft is included below) - this assessment and a firm commitment to add a human rights related Commitment into Icann's Bylaws, - the underlying requirements expressed during the debate, - the concrete language proposals that were considered by our group so far, as examples Finally, given the strong momentum on the issue, both during the meeting and on list before and after, and taking into account the high level of complexity involved, we suggest to kick off ASAP a subgroup to further refine the requirements and assess potential options based on further studies of the current situation and "agreed-on" language. We thank you all for your understanding and commitment on this topic, as well as the extensive discussions both on list and during the calls about this. As a reminder, Minority statements filed until Saturday 12.00 UTC will be incorporated into the report to be published on Monday. Statements filed after this deadline will be published online but not incorporated into the report. Best regards, Leon, Thomas & Mathieu Co-chairs ----------------------------------------------- NEW SUBSECTION IN 3A Mission, Commitmennts & Core Values Elaborating an Icann Commitment to Human Rights The CCWG-Accountability extensively discussed the opportunity to include into Icann Bylaws a Comittment related to Human Rights. The group commissioned a legal analysis of whether the termination of the IANA contract would induce changes into Icann's obligations with regards to Human Rights (LINK). While no significant issue was found to be directly linked to the termination of the IANA contract, the group acknowledged the recurring debates around the nature of Icann's accountability towards the respect of fundamental human rights. These discussions identified the following, non-exhaustive, list of accountability-related requirements : - the NTIA criteria to maintain the openness of the Internet, including free expression and the free flow of information - the need to avoid extending Icann's mission into content regulation - the importance of assessing the impact of Icann policies on Human rights Examples of language that could serve as a Commitment were as follows : - Within its mission and in its operations, ICANN will be committed to respect the fundamental human rights of the exercise of free expression and the free flow of information. - Within its mission and in it operations, ICANN will be committed to respect internationally recognized fundamental human rights. The group has achieved consensus on including a human rights related Commitment in Icann's Bylaws. However no particular wording currently proposed achieved consensus. Reiterating its commitment to elaborate concrete proposals as part of its mandate, the CCWG-Accountability is calling for comments on this approach and the underlying requirements. -- ***************************** Mathieu WEILL AFNIC - directeur général Tél: +33 1 39 30 83 06 mathieu.weill@afnic.fr Twitter : @mathieuweill *****************************