Niels: As usual, you bring up an important point. While ICANN activities may affect many human rights indirectly and directly, in trying to develop human rights guidance it makes sense to focus on specific human rights that are directly affected by ICANN activities. Some of these rights may be economic and social rights. But the problem is if we are going to demand ICANN take steps to protect respect and remedy its human rights impact, ICANN must be able to measure its effects upon human rights (as put forward in the Guiding Principles). But as of today, the metrics for human rights accountability are inadequate. We have plenty of metrics of government respect for human rights (as in political or civil rights). I call this supply side data on human rights. It is all based on the perception of experts (which makes me uncomfortable). In contrast, UNDP and other organizations have started multidimensional polling of people around the world, essentially asking them if they think they are "realizing" their rights. This kind of demand side human rights metric is not widely available, but there is a good start in the multidimensional poverty metrics done by UNDP when it asks people about whether they have access to sanitation or access to education. so my long winded point is that in delineating that ICANN do x, y and z, it will be very difficult to measure if they are actually doing things right or wrong. -- Susan Ariel Aaronson, Ph.D. Research Professor of International Affairs, Institute of International Economic Policy Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University http://www.gwu.edu/~elliott/faculty/aaronson.cfm Please visit the Trade and the Internet Project Web site: http://www.gwu.edu/~iiep/signatureinitiatives/governance/taig/ The Trade, Trust, Transparency and Accountability page is: http://www.gwu.edu/~iiep/signatureinitiatives/governance/Trade_Trust_Transpa... For the Repression, Civil conflict, and Leadership Tenure Project: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/spp/research/conflict-repression To see many of my publications go to: http://ssrn.com/author=1145702