[council] GAC letter regarding Culturally Objectionable and/or sensitive strings

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

The GAC has written to the ICANN Board and has recommended replacing the
current objection mechanism for new gTLDs around "morality and public
order", with an objection procedure that both recognizes the relevance
of national laws and effectively addresses strings that raise national,
cultural, geographic, religious, and/or linguistic sensitivities or
objections that could result in intractable disputes.   The GAC has
recommended a "community-wide discussion" to come up with this new
objection procedure.

See below.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin


From:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/gac-to-dengate-thrush-04aug10-en.pdf

Date: 4 August 2010

To; Mr Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of the Board, ICANN

RE: Procedures for Addressing Culturally Objectionable and/or Sensitive
Strings

Dear Peter,

The GAC firmly believes that the absence of any controversial strings in
the current universe of top level domains (TLDs) to date contributes
directly to the security and stability of the domain name and addressing
system (DNS) and the universal resolvability of the system.   As a
matter of principle, and consistent with Sections 3 (b) and 8 (a) of the
Affirmation of Commitments and the core values contained in Article 1,
Section 2 of ICANN's Bylaws, the GAC believes that the objectives of
stability, security and universal resolvability must be preserved in the
course of expanding the DNS with the addition of new top level domains
to the root.   The GAC urges the Board to ensure that this fundamental
value, which preserves the integrity of the DNS, is incorporated as an
element of the public interest standard to which it has committed in the
Affirmation of Commitments.

In this regard, the GAC believes that procedures to identify strings
that could raise national, cultural, geographic, religious and/or
linguistic sensitivities or objections are warranted so as to mitigate
the risks of fragmenting the DNS that could result from the introduction
of controversial strings.

While the GAC appreciates that the proposed objection procedure on
"Morality and Public Order" grounds included in DAGv4 was intended to
satisfy the concern noted above, the GAC strongly advises the Board to
replace the proposed approach to addressing objections to new gTLD
applications based on "Morality and Public Order" concerns with an
alternative mechanism for addressing concerns related to objectionable
strings.  The terms "morality and public order" are used in various
international instruments, such as the Paris Convention for the
Protection of Industrial Property, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR).  Generally, these terms are used to provide the basis for
countries to either take an exemption from a treaty obligation or to
establish by law limitations on rights and freedoms at the national
level.   Judicial decisions taken on these grounds are based on national
law and vary from country to country.   Accordingly, the GAC advises
that using these terms as the premise for the proposed approach is
flawed as it suggests that there is an internationally agreed definition
of "Morality and Public Order".   This is clearly not the case.

The GAC therefore recommends that community-wide discussions be
facilitated by ICANN in order to ensure that an effective objections
procedure be developed that both recognizes the relevance of national
laws and effectively addresses strings that raise national, cultural,
geographic, religious, and/or linguistic sensitivities or objections
that could result in intractable disputes.   These objection procedures
should apply to all pending and future TLDs.

Your sincerely,

Heather Dryden
Chair  of the Government Advisory Committee
Senior Advisor to the Government of Canada