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A paper titled, "Civil society involvement in ICANN: Strengthening future civil society influence in ICANN policymaking," written by Robin Gross, examines the historical role that civil society has played at ICANN in policymaking.

The author writes: This paper examines the historical role that civil society has played at ICANN in policymaking. The unique role of "multi-stakeholderism" at ICANN and its value in evolving Internet governance regimes is recognized as ICANN's key contribution. The paper also examines one substantive issue that ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) has focused considerable attention to over the last decade: ICANN's Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), including the development of the original UDRP over a decade ago and its current need for review. The paper also discusses the struggles that noncommercial users have faced recently to be influenced by the trademark lobby in the policy development process at ICANN and the challenge of protecting human rights within ICANN's legal structure of a private corporation. The paper argues that multi-stakeholderism is key to ICANN's success and its legitimacy as a global governance organization.

To download the paper click here.

Related topics: ICANN, Internet Governance