ICANN's Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights

Article 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression, 2015

16 Pages Posted: 1 Oct 2015

See all articles by Monika Zalnieriute

Monika Zalnieriute

University of New South Wales (UNSW) - UNSW Law & Justice

Date Written: February 08, 2015

Abstract

Freedom of expression and privacy are internationally recognised human rights. This paper addresses the privacy and freedom of expression issues that arise in relation to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) policies and procedures. In particular, it explores the corporate responsibility of ICANN to respect human rights. It relies on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Guiding Principles), known as the ‘Protect, Respect, and Remedy’ framework, which were unanimously adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2011. This paper sets out the UN Guiding Principles and explains their relevance to ICANN’s policies and procedures on new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). In particular, it examines the ways in which ICANN’s standards and policies governing the ‘sensitive applied-for strings’ fall short of freedom of expression standards, and, furthermore, how the RAA provisions are in breach of data protection best practices and standards.

Keywords: ICANN, Internet Governance, Human Rights, Data Protection, Freedom of Expression

Suggested Citation

Zalnieriute, Monika, ICANN's Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights (February 08, 2015). Article 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression, 2015, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2667488

Monika Zalnieriute (Contact Author)

University of New South Wales (UNSW) - UNSW Law & Justice ( email )

Sydney, New South Wales 2052
Australia

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
72
Abstract Views
805
Rank
585,002
PlumX Metrics