*sigh* this time *with* the attached PDF letter... CLO From: Cheryl Langdon-Orr [mailto:langdonorr@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, 2 October 2009 10:50 AM To: 'peter.dengatethrush@icann.org'; 'secretary@icann.org'; 'Denise Michel'; 'Wendy'; 'Vanda Scartezini' Cc: 'avri@psg.com'; 'alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org'; 'staff@atlarge.icann.org' Subject: Letter to the Chairman of the ICANN Board. Subject: Request for a Non-lawyers guide to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. Please find attached my letter requesting consideration of making a Non -lawyers Guide to the RAA available for community use by ICANN... Can ask staff to ensure this and other recent letters from me are listed in the appropriate correspondences and meetings action items sections of our ALAC Wikis as a community archive... CLO Text copy is inserted below... Letter to the Chairman of the ICANN Board. Subject: Request for a Non-lawyers guide to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. Via email To: Peter Dengate Thrush peter.dengatethrush@icann.org, secretary@icann.org, Denise Michel denise.michel@icann.org, Wendy Seltzerwendy@seltzer.com, Vanda Scartezini vanda@uol.com.br, Cc: avri@psg.com, alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org <mailto:alac-announce@atlarge-lists.icann.org> , staff@atlarge.icann.org, Dear Peter: Our community is currently engaged in a collaboration with the GNSO's communities discussing what potential future changes to the RAA could be envisaged, and in a related under a single Chartered WG, but separated into two work team efforts, in working on a Registrants Rights and Responsibilities charter. It would greatly facilitate our ability to effectively engage in these efforts if a 'non-lawyers' guide to the RAA's provisions was available. As you are well-aware, the RAA is one of the most important documents related to ICANN. However, since it is a legal document drafted to conform to the legal traditions of a single country, only a relative few in the ICANN community - to say nothing of the wider Internet-using community - are able to understand its provisions. I and many in our community know that you are intimately aware of the many variations that exist between US law and that of New Zealand, even though both are common-law-based legal environments and both utilise the English language. Therefore I am writing to you and the Board on this matter today, is to ask for the consideration of a production of a Non-lawyers (or simple language guide) to the RAA to aid and assist our community to discuss the RAA on anything like an equal footing with a representative of a contracting party who is a lawyer trained in US law. I'm sure you and the Board will also be cognoscente of the difficulties in comprehension of the RAA for a member of an Internet end-user group who is not a lawyer, who comes from a non-English-speaking country with a legal regime based upon civil law traditions, so we would envisage that any output would also be produced in multiple languages. Further, we believe that such a document would be a meaningful contribution to the transparency and accountability of ICANN and that many other members of the ICANN community, not directly involved in this WG at this time, would benefit from the production of such a document too. Please pass this request on to your colleagues on the Board and if you agree with this need perhaps the Public Participation Committee and General Council might be asked to further the matter, as a matter of some urgency as I think it is time critical as we are currently underway with this important partnership activity with the GNSO. I shall look forward to a reply on this matter in due course. Regards, Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO) Chair of the At-Large Advisory Committee 2007-2009