URS Individual Proposal #34
- Ariel Liang
Analytics
URS Individual Proposal #34 URS shall be amended to incorporate in full Rule #11 of the UDRP Rules regarding “Language of Proceedings”, see: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/udrp-rules-2015-03-11-en “(a) Unless otherwise agreed by the Parties, or specified otherwise in the Registration Agreement, the language of the administrative proceeding shall be the language of the Registration Agreement, subject to the authority of the Panel to determine otherwise, having regard to the circumstances of the administrative proceeding. (b) The Panel may order that any documents submitted in languages other than the language of the administrative proceeding be accompanied by a translation in whole or in part into the language of the administrative proceeding.” The Proponent proposed the following: Preliminary submissions by either side to the Panel regarding the language of the proceeding shall be limited to 250 words, and not be counted against the existing URS word limits. Notice of Complaint shall contain a section explaining that the Respondent may make a submission regarding the language of the proceedings. If a translation is ordered, exceeding the URS word limits shall be permitted, as long as the original submission met the word limits in the original language. |
Context:
Rationale provided by the Proponent: Currently, the URS Rules[1] only require that the Notice of Complaint be translated into the language of the respondent’s country, not the Complaint itself (Rules #4 and #9 of the URS) which is currently required to be in English. This can put Respondents who don’t understand English at a severe disadvantage in the process. For ICANN to be placing one language above all others for mandatory policies in a multilingual world defies common sense.
By having the language of the registration agreement determine the language of the administrative proceeding, registrants will have the opportunity to select a registration agreement in the language of their choice, and thereby be able to fairly participate in the URS. To be clear, URS providers would not be required to provide translations of pleadings (only the Notice of Complaint), so would not bear additional costs (the pleadings need to be provided by the parties in the appropriate language, subject to panel discretion as per the URS’ flexibility). Any panel order for translation would need to be done by the parties.
Working Group Deliberation: There was wide support in the Working Group to publish the proposal in the Initial Report to seek public comment.
[1] URS Rules can be downloaded here: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/urs/rules-28jun13-en.pdf