Fairness

An essential part of the role of an ombudsman is to investigate fairness. The promotion of fairness is fundamental to good practice as an ombudsman and the need to ensure fairness was one of the major reasons for creating the role back in the early days in Scandinavia. If therefore there is one theme in the way in which any ombudsman operates, it is this element of introducing a balance of fairness between people in a huge variety of situations. For an ombudsman like me with a legal background fairness sometimes comes with a loaded reference to fairness as a matter of law. But often, it is a practical application of a balance between the needs of different people. An example of this came to my attention recently. A person complained to me that the application process for the new gTLDs was not sufficiently promoted in the country where he lived. His concern was that the failure to properly publicise the program in his country meant that people needed more time to consider making an application for a new gTLD. I was able to point out to him that ICANN has consulted very extensively with GAC, the Governmental Advisory Committee to ICANN, and that his country had a representative on the GAC. So the issue became different from unfairness by ICANN, because of the existence of a sophisticated process of consultation. Because ICANN is driven by the supporting organisations, including GAC, a balance has been reached, and a reasonable degree of fairness results. I have suggested he discuss this with his country representative.