ICANN Org HRIA + update on community model
Dear colleagues, ICANN Org has published the Human Rights Impact Assessment carried out on its operations. Find the announcement and link to the report here: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2019-05-15-en I personally find the formatting of the report to be rather confusing. At first read, I would have liked to see additional focus on the methodology and substance of the assessment itself. An explanation about how impacts were measured and prioritized would have been good, along with additional details about the "Impact Assessment Frameworks" developed for each of the four assessment areas (Human Resources, Event Planning, Procurement, and Security Operations). Please share any additional thoughts or questions you may have and I will relay them to ICANN Staff and Löning, the assessment practitioner. On a related note, for those of you who missed the CCWP-HR call yesterday, new guidance has been produced about how to complete our PDP Human Rights Impact Assessment tool. [0] It can be found attached to this email as a PDF, or in the second tab of the Sub Pros trial HRIA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EKpMCef8kiZ2tJE2AU78q9_oeJehGbR7bWpQ... As always, feel free to leave comments or make any updates or modifications as you see fit. Akriti and I are working on the final report of this first trial run, and will be in touch shortly about the next assessments. Let us know if you'd like to get involved in this work — particularly if you're already engaging in PDPs! Kind regards, Collin [0] Find a retrospective of past HRIA iterations here: https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Meeting+Notes?preview=/5... -- Collin Kurre Digital Program Officer ARTICLE 19
Hi all In addition to Collin's point on methodology: it's never really clear what is the norm in question against which ICANN's internal policies and practices are evaluated. We seem to have a mix of US federal statutes, international law strictly speaking, "secondary"/softer international law like ILO recommendations, and then other stuff of unknown origin. Another issue: international human rights law generally is not the most precise kind of thing. One may have a right to a safe working environment in some treaty somewhere, but there is actual lawyering work required to assert that such a vague statement actually prescribes a concrete norm applicable to a concrete situation. I have found little or no such argumentation. It's mostly conclusory, jumping from vague/ill-defined "human rights" (no textual references of any sort; at best a mention of ILO.) to concrete rights or duties. One example: ICANN has "well-managed and standardized procurement practices, guidelines and trainings." That says very little about what IRH law has to say about procurement, and the extent by which ICANN abides by those rules. Another one: s.2.4: "Sick leave, as well as maternity and paternity leave, are provided according to national law". Sure. I hope it is! What is national law here? US federal or California law? Or other law for regional offices? Is there IHR law on maternity and paternity leave? What does it say? How does what it says translate into concrete norms? In general, and in the US? If so, are such norms applicable to a US entity? And indeed that is not even touching the fact that what is being discussed here is ICANN's compliance with the whole universe of human rights, not only those which are actually applicable to ICANN, a private entity in the US. I get the idea of doing what they do, I'd just prefer to have things stated clearly and separated, between compliance which "would be a good thing" because IHR law talks about it and compliance which is mandated by actual law (and there is little "actual law" in the US when it comes to international human rights) As for the GDPR, the report seems to imply that ICANN is bent on applying the GDPR throughout. Is that the case? Meaning, is ICANN seeking to "apply" the GDPR as if it were a EU-based entity? Fully and thoroughly? Even in all its transactions and relations that have absolutely nothing to do with the EU? (think US-based employees). Maybe I just missed something, but I felt that the whole GDPR discussion was limited to WHOIS. A nice weekend to all, On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 2:18 PM Collin Kurre <collin@article19.org> wrote:
Dear colleagues,
ICANN Org has published the Human Rights Impact Assessment carried out on its operations. Find the announcement and link to the report here: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2019-05-15-en
I personally find the formatting of the report to be rather confusing. At first read, I would have liked to see additional focus on the methodology and substance of the assessment itself. An explanation about how impacts were measured and prioritized would have been good, along with additional details about the "Impact Assessment Frameworks" developed for each of the four assessment areas (Human Resources, Event Planning, Procurement, and Security Operations).
Please share any additional thoughts or questions you may have and I will relay them to ICANN Staff and Löning, the assessment practitioner.
On a related note, for those of you who missed the CCWP-HR call yesterday, new guidance has been produced about how to complete our PDP Human Rights Impact Assessment tool. [0] It can be found attached to this email as a PDF, or in the second tab of the Sub Pros trial HRIA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EKpMCef8kiZ2tJE2AU78q9_oeJehGbR7bWpQ...
As always, feel free to leave comments or make any updates or modifications as you see fit. Akriti and I are working on the final report of this first trial run, and will be in touch shortly about the next assessments. Let us know if you'd like to get involved in this work — particularly if you're already engaging in PDPs!
Kind regards, Collin
[0] Find a retrospective of past HRIA iterations here: https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Meeting+Notes?preview=/5...
-- Collin Kurre Digital Program Officer ARTICLE 19
_______________________________________________ cc-humanrights mailing list cc-humanrights@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-humanrights
Hi everyone, I agree with Collin and Raphaël and just to state a few things I found lacking as well: As Collin said, the format is not easily understandable and could have been cleared, not a lot of information is given on what "relevant" documents, how many interviews with people or on site visits were done. Less than half the personnel took the online survey which to me seems less than ideal to gather a comprehensive idea of the status quo. Whether these people were from 2-3 main teams or the distribution of how many ranged across each team or function is also unknown which could potentially impact the results of the survey. I would have liked to see more detail of the essentials of the human rights situation of each country or what they meany by looking into it instead of a passing reference to the collective situation. It is not helpful since we can't understand what ICANN has to mitigate with these situations. Under the harassment policy, they don't specifically point out the lack of a anti-sexual harassment policy (I know one is currently being formulated but it should have been mentioned anyway I think?) The report reportedly used the phrase “Well-managed and standardized procurement practices, guidelines and training are in place" without elaborating on what these policies and practices are within the specific context. Its hard to gauge the current level then at which ICANN is to then understand the work it needs to put in to improve. Just some of thoughts! Please anyone else feel free to add theirs. Best, Akriti On 18/05/2019 06:38, Raphaël Beauregard-Lacroix wrote:
Hi all
In addition to Collin's point on methodology:
it's never really clear what is the norm in question against which ICANN's internal policies and practices are evaluated.
We seem to have a mix of US federal statutes, international law strictly speaking, "secondary"/softer international law like ILO recommendations, and then other stuff of unknown origin.
Another issue: international human rights law generally is not the most precise kind of thing. One may have a right to a safe working environment in some treaty somewhere, but there is actual lawyering work required to assert that such a vague statement actually prescribes a concrete norm applicable to a concrete situation. I have found little or no such argumentation. It's mostly conclusory, jumping from vague/ill-defined "human rights" (no textual references of any sort; at best a mention of ILO.) to concrete rights or duties.
One example: ICANN has "well-managed and standardized procurement practices, guidelines and trainings." That says very little about what IRH law has to say about procurement, and the extent by which ICANN abides by those rules.
Another one: s.2.4: "Sick leave, as well as maternity and paternity leave, are provided according to national law". Sure. I hope it is! What is national law here? US federal or California law? Or other law for regional offices? Is there IHR law on maternity and paternity leave? What does it say? How does what it says translate into concrete norms? In general, and in the US? If so, are such norms applicable to a US entity?
And indeed that is not even touching the fact that what is being discussed here is ICANN's compliance with the whole universe of human rights, not only those which are actually applicable to ICANN, a private entity in the US. I get the idea of doing what they do, I'd just prefer to have things stated clearly and separated, between compliance which "would be a good thing" because IHR law talks about it and compliance which is mandated by actual law (and there is little "actual law" in the US when it comes to international human rights)
As for the GDPR, the report seems to imply that ICANN is bent on applying the GDPR throughout. Is that the case? Meaning, is ICANN seeking to "apply" the GDPR as if it were a EU-based entity? Fully and thoroughly? Even in all its transactions and relations that have absolutely nothing to do with the EU? (think US-based employees). Maybe I just missed something, but I felt that the whole GDPR discussion was limited to WHOIS.
A nice weekend to all,
On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 2:18 PM Collin Kurre <collin@article19.org <mailto:collin@article19.org>> wrote:
Dear colleagues,
ICANN Org has published the Human Rights Impact Assessment carried out on its operations. Find the announcement and link to the report here: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2019-05-15-en
I personally find the formatting of the report to be rather confusing. At first read, I would have liked to see additional focus on the methodology and substance of the assessment itself. An explanation about how impacts were measured and prioritized would have been good, along with additional details about the "Impact Assessment Frameworks" developed for each of the four assessment areas (Human Resources, Event Planning, Procurement, and Security Operations).
Please share any additional thoughts or questions you may have and I will relay them to ICANN Staff and Löning, the assessment practitioner.
On a related note, for those of you who missed the CCWP-HR call yesterday, new guidance has been produced about how to complete our PDP Human Rights Impact Assessment tool. [0] It can be found attached to this email as a PDF, or in the second tab of the Sub Pros trial HRIA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EKpMCef8kiZ2tJE2AU78q9_oeJehGbR7bWpQ...
As always, feel free to leave comments or make any updates or modifications as you see fit. Akriti and I are working on the final report of this first trial run, and will be in touch shortly about the next assessments. Let us know if you'd like to get involved in this work — particularly if you're already engaging in PDPs!
Kind regards, Collin
[0] Find a retrospective of past HRIA iterations here: https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Meeting+Notes?preview=/5...
-- Collin Kurre Digital Program Officer ARTICLE 19
_______________________________________________ cc-humanrights mailing list cc-humanrights@icann.org <mailto:cc-humanrights@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-humanrights
_______________________________________________ cc-humanrights mailing list cc-humanrights@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-humanrights
participants (3)
-
Akriti Bopanna -
Collin Kurre -
Raphaël Beauregard-Lacroix