Subject: [hrpc] and a correction

From: Sandra Braman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2021 15:21:31 -0600

>From the comments on draft guidelines:

The text that reads:

"Graph 2 on page 4 identifies key sources of human rights.  The manner of
presentation conflates documents from sources that are importantly
different regarding their source and, thus, relative weight.  A document
created by the Internet Governance Forum -- a talk shop only that has no
status within the international legal system on its own -- with United
Nations treaties."  and so forth

Should read:

"Graph 2 on page 4 identifies key sources of human rights.  The manner of
presentation, however, mixes actual international law with materials that
have no legal weight in a way that can be misleading.  The document from
the Internet Governance Forum -- a talk shop created after WSIS to provide
a venue in which people could discuss their concerns but which has no
necessary influence on either Internet governance or what states do --
should not be treated as if it were a source of international law.  Rather,
it should be included in discussion of the treatment of Internet-related
human rights as discussed in the scholarly literature and in gray matter
(reports from non-profit advocacy groups, think tanks, etc.)."  again
etcetera

Sandra

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 14:10:12 +0100

Sandra,

Thanks for these comments.  How I read them in their aggregate is that we should have an organizational issue to address.  Can a single document successfully cover the topic?  Should there be a bit of an outline or overview of the space, followed by a mapping of aspects that can be tackled?  That would then allow for some of this to be taken in bite sized pieces (or as we engineers might say, byte sized pieces).

Eliot

> On 12 Feb 2021, at 22:21, Sandra Braman <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> "Graph 2 on page 4 identifies key sources of human rights.  The manner of presentation conflates documents from sources that are importantly different regarding their source and, thus, relative weight.  A document created by the Internet Governance Forum -- a talk shop only that has no status within the international legal system on its own -- with United Nations treaties."  and so forth
> 
> Should read:
> 
> "Graph 2 on page 4 identifies key sources of human rights.  The manner of presentation, however, mixes actual international law with materials that have no legal weight in a way that can be misleading.  The document from the Internet Governance Forum -- a talk shop created after WSIS to provide a venue in which people could discuss their concerns but which has no necessary influence on either Internet governance or what states do -- should not be treated as if it were a source of international law.  Rather, it should be included in discussion of the treatment of Internet-related human rights as discussed in the scholarly literature and in gray matter (reports from non-profit advocacy groups, think tanks, etc.)."  again etcetera
> 
> Sandra
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> hrpc mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc

---

From: Sandra Braman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 10:06:00 -0600

That's a good point, Eliot.  My sense has been that the authors (as of RFC
8280) thought a single document could successfully map the space and then
subsequent documents (e.g., draft association) would take particular issues
on to examine in depth. If we are to look at the technical analogue of this
sociotechnical problem, though, no single RFC ever provided an entire map
of the network as a design problem.

As we saw, even draft association dealt with at least three different
topics on the technical side in addition to the significant proportion of
the text spent on application level and uses issues that in my view are
better addressed elsewhere -- communication, assembly, and association --
with the latter two not yet having received operational definition for
Internet design purposes.  My recommendation there had been to at minimum
hive off the discussion of communication issues for separate treatment,
although given the historical relationships assembly and association in
legal thought and practice, treating those two together in one RFC makes
sense.

On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 7:10 AM Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Sandra,
>
> Thanks for these comments.  How I read them in their aggregate is that we
> should have an organizational issue to address.  Can a single document
> successfully cover the topic?  Should there be a bit of an outline or
> overview of the space, followed by a mapping of aspects that can be
> tackled?  That would then allow for some of this to be taken in bite sized
> pieces (or as we engineers might say, byte sized pieces).
>
> Eliot
>
> > "Graph 2 on page 4 identifies key sources of human rights.  The manner
> of presentation conflates documents from sources that are importantly
> > "Graph 2 on page 4 identifies key sources of human rights.  The manner
> of presentation, however, mixes actual international law with materials
> that have no legal weight in a way that can be misleading.  The document
> from the Internet Governance Forum -- a talk shop created after WSIS to
> provide a venue in which people could discuss their concerns but which has
> no necessary influence on either Internet governance or what states do --