On Sep 5, 2016, at 6:38 PM, Niels ten Oever <lists@nielstenoever.net> wrote:
... b) Seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.
Interesting predicament. If one imagines the potential for an update to one of the IANA registries that in turn poses an impact to human rights – i.e. following the specific guidance from the appropriate community that is contracting with ICANN/PTI for IANA services would result in an HR impact, then the above proposed responsibility (to prevent or mitigate...) would suggest that ICANN should to do otherwise. Note that the event of ICANN/PTI acting contrary to the clear direction of one of the respective communities (names, numbers, protocols) with regard to IANA registry updates could easily precipitate a crisis that results in the end of ICANN, and thus should probably be avoided... ICANN (including PTI) needs to place the highest priority upon fidelity to the outcomes of the multi-stakeholder process, since its existence is predicated (particularly in a post-NTIA contract environment) upon the presupposition of the validity of that process. This is also the reason why I noted that there is a significant difference between application of HR principles within the multi- stakeholder policy development process when compared to later on during the policy implementation phases. /John Disclaimer: my views alone. Feel free to use, share, or discard as desired.