Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN
Colleagues, Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt "off-line", that the Corporation did something. It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded. In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ... And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state actors to access the global routing database. Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct control over", with the implication that the use of local language, and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation. And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and whistles. Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in languages other than US English. Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon
Hi Eric, On Thu, Nov 05, 2015 at 08:53:37AM -0800, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry.
But there is a simpler rationale that can be easily founded in the practical responsibility of ICANN, which is to make the root zone work and keep the resolution of names on the Internet continuous as far as practically possible. This is a narrow, administrative-technical function that I think keeps ICANN away from political activities that are perhaps better resolved by politicians. In my experience, it is easier to make an argument from practical grounds -- especially when talking about an operational problem -- than from principles. Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com
Andrew, As you are available, would you care to explain to the common reader what expiry of a zone means in a secondary authoritative name server? Either ICANN was proposing to violate the documented mechanism for ensuring zone data is expired, and refreshed, and so engaging in something other than a narrow, administrative-technical function, or ICANN was not proposing to violate that rather well understood process. But I take your point that in your opinion, there is no "right" to continuous correct resolution which government, or any other actor, may not arbitrarily alter. You might also want to argue that the former CEO and Chair were in error when asserting that the one remaining instance of the .eg zone would be preserved, or as an alternative, that since the withdrawn prefixes were re-announced before expiry occurred, that this was a non-event, regardless of the utterances of the CEO and Chair at the time. You may want to re-evaluate whether your personal experience is sufficient to offer a cogent response to every question. Eric On 11/5/15 9:17 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
Hi Eric,
On Thu, Nov 05, 2015 at 08:53:37AM -0800, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. But there is a simpler rationale that can be easily founded in the practical responsibility of ICANN, which is to make the root zone work and keep the resolution of names on the Internet continuous as far as practically possible. This is a narrow, administrative-technical function that I think keeps ICANN away from political activities that are perhaps better resolved by politicians.
In my experience, it is easier to make an argument from practical grounds -- especially when talking about an operational problem -- than from principles.
Best regards,
A
Is that not the basis of pretty much all of our work here?-jg On 05/11/2015, 5:43 p.m., "accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Eric Brunner-Williams" <accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org on behalf of ebw@abenaki.wabanaki.net> wrote:
You may want to re-evaluate whether your personal experience is sufficient to offer a cogent response to every question.
Hi, Sorry for the top post and long response time. As I hope everyone knows, the normal effect of a secondary expiry timer being reached is that the server in question stops answering and starts returning servfail. Clearly ICANN knew perfectly well that its proposal was outside the norm, or it would not have announced the plan. I think it unreasonable to call the decision more than administrative-technical (or techno-administrative, if we want to split hairs) because of the unusual situation. Connectivity had gone down, the situation was unclear, and this plan would have at least kept the zone active until the situation could be sorted out. I'm prepared to accept an argument that this was a bad or a good decision, but I fail completely to see how adding human rights to the discussion helps us know. You could make a rights argument in either direction. You could make parallel arguments from the responsibility for stable resolution of delegations from the root zone. Administrative decisions are not necessarily ones that do not ramify for rights people have. But it seems to me that, if we can get the results we need by properly constraining ICANN to freedoms it needs for technical administrative decisions, then the rights flow from the technology itself and not from ICANN decisions or actions. That narrower conception also neatly cuts off other uncomfortable issues. For instance, if the failure were in twitter.com, would ICANN properly intervene? I say no, but both the recently-debated chapeau of the mission (which we appear to have resolved) and the human rights references proposed might well be used to argue ICANN ought to act in such cases. That seems risky to me. Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan Please excuse my clumbsy thums.
On Nov 5, 2015, at 11:43, Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@abenaki.wabanaki.net> wrote:
Andrew,
As you are available, would you care to explain to the common reader what expiry of a zone means in a secondary authoritative name server? Either ICANN was proposing to violate the documented mechanism for ensuring zone data is expired, and refreshed, and so engaging in something other than a narrow, administrative-technical function, or ICANN was not proposing to violate that rather well understood process.
But I take your point that in your opinion, there is no "right" to continuous correct resolution which government, or any other actor, may not arbitrarily alter.
You might also want to argue that the former CEO and Chair were in error when asserting that the one remaining instance of the .eg zone would be preserved, or as an alternative, that since the withdrawn prefixes were re-announced before expiry occurred, that this was a non-event, regardless of the utterances of the CEO and Chair at the time.
You may want to re-evaluate whether your personal experience is sufficient to offer a cogent response to every question.
Eric
On 11/5/15 9:17 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote: Hi Eric,
On Thu, Nov 05, 2015 at 08:53:37AM -0800, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote: In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. But there is a simpler rationale that can be easily founded in the practical responsibility of ICANN, which is to make the root zone work and keep the resolution of names on the Internet continuous as far as practically possible. This is a narrow, administrative-technical function that I think keeps ICANN away from political activities that are perhaps better resolved by politicians.
In my experience, it is easier to make an argument from practical grounds -- especially when talking about an operational problem -- than from principles.
Best regards,
A
_______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Thanks Eric. I think these are all valid considerations for Work Stream 2. Regards, Keith -----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Eric Brunner-Williams Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 11:54 AM To: 'accountability-cross-community@icann.org' Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN Colleagues, Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt "off-line", that the Corporation did something. It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded. In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ... And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state actors to access the global routing database. Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct control over", with the implication that the use of local language, and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation. And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and whistles. Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in languages other than US English. Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
The human right issue belongs firmly into WS1. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 5 Nov 2015, at 19:19, Drazek, Keith <kdrazek@verisign.com> wrote:
Thanks Eric. I think these are all valid considerations for Work Stream 2.
Regards, Keith
-----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Eric Brunner-Williams Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 11:54 AM To: 'accountability-cross-community@icann.org' Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN
Colleagues,
Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt "off-line", that the Corporation did something.
It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded.
In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state actors to access the global routing database.
Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct control over", with the implication that the use of local language, and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation.
And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and whistles.
Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in languages other than US English.
Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Agreed, and I am on record supporting that. But further detailed work, including the examples highlighted by Eric, will be required in WS2. Keith -----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Dr Eberhard W Lisse Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 12:31 PM To: CCWG Accountability Cc: Lisse Eberhard Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN The human right issue belongs firmly into WS1. el -- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 5 Nov 2015, at 19:19, Drazek, Keith <kdrazek@verisign.com> wrote:
Thanks Eric. I think these are all valid considerations for Work Stream 2.
Regards, Keith
-----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Eric Brunner-Williams Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 11:54 AM To: 'accountability-cross-community@icann.org' Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN
Colleagues,
Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt "off-line", that the Corporation did something.
It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded.
In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state actors to access the global routing database.
Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct control over", with the implication that the use of local language, and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation.
And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and whistles.
Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in languages other than US English.
Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
A high level committment to a world-wide accepted baseline standard is a sine qua non for WS1, and a prerequisite as far as I am concerned for the transition from semi-state actor to private organisation. WS2 is indeed where we explore the details. But to reject the baseline, or qualify it out of existence is not acceptable -- given the thin ice ICANN is on since the ICO and (particularly) FIFA debacles. On 11/05/2015 05:34 PM, Drazek, Keith wrote:
Agreed, and I am on record supporting that. But further detailed work, including the examples highlighted by Eric, will be required in WS2. Keith
-----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Dr Eberhard W Lisse Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 12:31 PM To: CCWG Accountability Cc: Lisse Eberhard Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN
The human right issue belongs firmly into WS1.
el
-- Sent from Dr Lisse's iPad mini
On 5 Nov 2015, at 19:19, Drazek, Keith <kdrazek@verisign.com> wrote:
Thanks Eric. I think these are all valid considerations for Work Stream 2.
Regards, Keith
-----Original Message----- From: accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Eric Brunner-Williams Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2015 11:54 AM To: 'accountability-cross-community@icann.org' Subject: [CCWG-ACCT] Reflections on human rights protection and promotion by ICANN
Colleagues,
Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt "off-line", that the Corporation did something.
It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded.
In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state actors to access the global routing database.
Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct control over", with the implication that the use of local language, and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation.
And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and whistles.
Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in languages other than US English.
Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
Colleagues, I would like to suggest that our human rights language include something along the lines of: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust." The source is Article VI of the Constitution of the United States. Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon On 11/5/15 8:53 AM, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
Colleagues,
Some will recall that when the Government of Egypt, then going through crisis, directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to withdraw their respective prefix announcements, affecting a series of changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, which took Egypt "off-line", that the Corporation did something.
It announced that the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone which remained globally accessible would, if its data "expired" before the Government of Egypt directed the ISPs within its jurisdiction to re-announce their respective prefix announcements, again affecting changes to the global routing database communicated via BGP4, putting Egypt back "on-line", refresh the zone date of the one remaining authoritative server for the .eg zone, so that the pre-existing data for the entire .eg zone would not be discarded.
In effect, the Corporation guaranteed the continuous existence of zone data and correctness of resolution, independent of the express intent of the (then) Government of Egypt, because ...
And there is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for keeping the .eg data from expiry. It could be the rights of Egyptians to continuity and correctness of resolution withing the .eg zone, or the global right to continuity and correctness of resolution of any zone, including the .eg zone, or possibly even further reaching, conditions upon the abilities of state actors to access the global routing database.
Next, at the Santa Monica meeting, which I was able to attend in person, I pointed out that we (Amadeu, myself, ... Vint, ...) had no idea in 2005 that a "cultural and linguistic application" by a Catalan NGO would trigger a vast amount of text generation in Catalan in the namespace delegated to the Catalan NGO. I said something along the lines of "access to namespaces is something the Corporation has direct control over", with the implication that the use of local language, and so the infrastructure which reasonably facilitates that use, is a human right, protected and promoted by the Corporation.
And here too is where we have the possibility of writing in the human rights rational for the IDN program, with all its warts and bells and whistles.
Are there other ways to approach human rights protection and promotion by ICANN? It seems likely to me, but these are things we've done, the Corporation has done with the full knowledge and consent of the Community, and are rather central to the mission of the Corporation -- continuous correct routing and resolution, and identifiers in languages other than US English.
Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community
participants (6)
-
Andrew Sullivan -
Dr Eberhard W Lisse -
Drazek, Keith -
Eric Brunner-Williams -
James Gannon -
Nigel Roberts