[At-Large] ICANN75: Mandatory Funded Traveler Registration for Roberto Gaetano

Marita Moll mmoll at ca.inter.net
Tue Jul 26 16:54:46 UTC 2022


Hi Olivier. It's an interesting question. Here is the web description of 
what the ombuds office does:

"The ICANN Ombudsman's job is to make sure that ICANN community members 
are treated fairly. Acting as an impartial mediator, the Ombudsman helps 
resolve disputes on issues involving the ICANN Board, staff and 
supporting organizations."

I don't know where the Ombudsman would fit in. That office tends to work 
on individual grievances. We are having some success in getting the 
waiver adjusted, amended, toned down and we have just had a commitment 
from Leon Sanchez, board vice-chair and holder of seat 15 and an ALAC 
appointee, that the board will continue to work on that waiver so that 
it does not operate as a deterrent/ demotivator for volunteers.

So we need to keep up the pressure and keep paying attention. The waiver 
is already part of the requirement for all travelers funded by ICANN. 
The next item that really needs to be questioned is that part about 
heirs and relatives also giving up their rights. Is that even enforceable?

Marita

On 2022-07-26 11:30 a.m., Olivier Kouami wrote:
> Greetings from Sénégal
>
> Please, again, what is the role of the Ombudsman in this case.
> He is for what ?
> Warm regards
> Olévié
>
> Le mar. 26 juil. 2022 à 15:18, Marita Moll via At-Large 
> <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org 
> <mailto:at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>> a écrit :
>
>     Karl, it sounds like you are describing waiver v.1.0. I thought
>     v.2.0 (the current version), was a lot more digestible. Clearly,
>     the part about heirs, etc. still exists in both. Without a test
>     case, we don't know if a certain waiver is going to survive a
>     court challenge, but they are intimidating. That's the whole point.
>
>     I have said I would probably bow down and sign the current version
>     of the waiver if I felt my physical attendance at the meeting was
>     important. It is not a choice. And I wonder if this waiver signing
>     will be part of any ICANN related meeting -- e.g. RALO meetings,
>     AGMs, etc. As you say at the end, it is sad "that, ICANN, an
>     organization whose legal purpose is "to lessen the burdens of
>     government" and that obtains its legal existence as a "public
>     benefit" corporation, feels that it must protect itself by the
>     Procrustean technique of chopping the rights off of those who wish
>     to attend its open and public meetings"
>
>     I will say, again, in my lengthy career as a writer, speaker,
>     policy analyst, etc. who attended and organized hundreds of
>     meetings, I never once signed a waiver or asked anyone else to do
>     so. Welcome to the post-pandemic world, I guess.
>
>     Marita
>
>
>     On 2022-07-25 3:59 p.m., Karl Auerbach via At-Large wrote:
>>     Wow, that's some "waiver"!   The California lawyer neurons in my
>>     head, upon reading this thing, are screaming "California Civil
>>     Code section 1670.5!!!!!"  This provision can effectively remove
>>     "unconscionable" terms from contracts (such as this ICANN
>>     "waiver") or even void the entire agreement.
>>
>>     https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1670.5&lawCode=CIV
>>     <https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1670.5&lawCode=CIV>
>>
>>
>>     There are other similar California provisions, such as
>>     1770(a)(19) (which is probably inapplicable because this waiver
>>     is not a sale or lease to a consumer.)
>>
>>     A couple of indicia of "unconscionable"ness are things like
>>     denial of damages and limitations on the right to seek court
>>     relief, both of which are in the ICANN "waiver".  Now, an
>>     indicator of unconcionable-ness is not the same as being
>>     unconscionable.  But such indications are the kind of yellow
>>     bricks that paved the road that led Dorothy to Oz.  So ICANN has,
>>     via this overreaching "waiver" has at the least started down the
>>     road to being subject to these California laws.
>>
>>     I am, of course, presuming (perhaps incorrectly) that this
>>     agreement is made under, interpreted under, and enforced under
>>     the laws of California - but the agreement sloppily forgets to
>>     mention these rather important aspects.
>>
>>     The waiver, to my highly opinionated and jaded eyes, appears
>>     drafted by someone who has not yet begun a career in law and who,
>>     if they have started, is unlikely to finish well.  (More likely
>>     perhaps is that this is the work of some low level associate has
>>     followed the practice of medieval Scholastic monks who, when
>>     copying manuscripts, copied and merged text without actually
>>     thinking about the meaning of what they were copying and merging
>>     - the most famous example being the fable of Noah and the Ark
>>     where, after ages of copying and merging, there are now divergent
>>     counts of how many animals of each kind.)
>>
>>     There is an old, and very bad joke:
>>
>>       An airplane crashes directly onto the border line between
>>     California and Nevada.  Where are the survivors buried?
>>
>>     The joke is that one does not bury the survivors who, presumably,
>>     are quite alive.
>>
>>     Well, ICANN's "waiver" makes promises on behalf of parties who do
>>     not yet exist, like heirs and assigns.  There are much better
>>     ways to draft an agreement to limit the propagation of
>>     obligations and duties to third parties.  I was also amused by
>>     the sloppy drafting that left "personal representatives" and
>>     "executors" dangling in a limbo of ambiguity between two
>>     inconsistent sentences in the "waiver".
>>
>>     And, of course, whenever an agreement uses words like "forever"
>>     my mind says "remember the rule against perpetuities" - but
>>     that's something so arcane that probably nobody understands what
>>     it means.
>>
>>     I do hope ICANN was not billed by its law firm for the drafting
>>     of this thing.  And I find it sad that, ICANN, an organization
>>     whose legal purpose is "to lessen the burdens of government" and
>>     that obtains its legal existence as a "public benefit"
>>     corporation, feels that it must protect itself by the Procrustean
>>     technique of chopping the rights off of those who wish to attend
>>     its open and public meetings.
>>
>>         --karl--
>>
>>
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