Yesterday we posted a February 26th letter that ICA sent to ICANN urgently requesting that the ICANN Board defer action at its February 28th meeting on the pending proposal of the Arab Center for Dispute Resolution (ACDR) to be accredited as a UDRP arbitration provider — and that ICANN published ACDR’s revised proposal for public comment before taking any final action.
We have just learned that on February 27th ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) made the exact same request of ICANN. Their message is below.
Now that ICANN has received concerned input from ICA, the IPC, and ICANN’s Business Constituency, we certainly hope they will do the right thing and acquiesce to the requests for deferral and publication. There are two very important things at stake here. The first is whether there will be reliable means to assure that the UDRP will be administered in a uniform manner as new UDRP providers seek accreditation in the future, or whether we’ll witness a race to the bottom that encourages forum shopping. The second is whether ICANN will observe its own commitments to transparency and accountability when it considers such important matters.
Here’s the IPC communication —
Dear Dr. Crocker and Mr. Chehadé,
I write in my capacity as President of the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) to request that the ICANN Board of Directors (i) defer consideration of the Arab Center for Domain Name Dispute Resolution’s proposal to become a UDRP provider and (ii) publish for public comment the most current ACDR proposal.
Attached for your convenience are the comments the IPC submitted in October 2010 on the then-current ACDR proposal. In its comments, the IPC identified several issues with ACDR’s proposal that required resolution before ICANN approved ACDR’s proposal. Given those issues and in light of the fact that no information has been shared with the community regarding changes, if any, to ACDR’s proposal since the public comment period closed almost 2 1/2 years ago, IPC believes that it is appropriate and desirable that the current ACDR proposal be made available for public comment before the ICANN Board of Directors acts upon it.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about this request or if I can provide further information.
Sincerely yours,
Kristina Rosette
President, Intellectual Property Constituency