Re: [ga] Are the Falkland Islands and Bermuda in Europe?

[elliot noss <enoss@tucows.com>]

these comments deal with the role and nature of the nation-state in 
ICANN. my view would be that he right place for these comments, 
especially post-ERC, would be for you to raise them with the Dutch GAC 
representative and ask her/him to take them up inside of the GAC (as 
they hold notoriously closed sessions).

in thinking through similar issues in the past we have chosen to go 
this route with the Canadian GAC rep. btw, these are entirely process 
observations. they are not in any way commenting on the substance of 
the observation below and I of course think they are fine for 
discussion here, but if action is sought then it is my view that the 
above is the appropriate route.

Regards

On Sunday, June 8, 2003, at 10:24 AM, Marc Schneiders wrote:

> The 5 regions used by ICANN to ascertain geographical representation 
> have
> made me uncomfortable for several reasons. One of these is that they 
> are
> not nearly of equal size in whatever way you measure that size
> (inhabitants, internet users, size of territory).
>
> A few days ago a revised version of the allocation of countries and
> territories has been put up on the ICANN website. It will be discussed 
> in
> Montreal.
>
> http://www.icann.org/montreal/geo-regions-topic.html
>
> If I understand it, Bermuda and the Falkland Islands are now in Europe.
> The same is true for some French territories. Please, note that the
> European Union does think that some of these countries/territories are
> in Europe and others not. (http://europa.eu.int/abc/maps/index_nl.htm)
>
> The reason seems to be the citizenship of the people who live there.  I
> don't know about Bermuda and the Falklands, but the two former Dutch
> colonies, which are also in 'Europe' now, elect their own parliament 
> etc.
> They are independent politically.  The Dutch government does not speak 
> for
> Aruba or the Netherlands Antilles. It fights with them occasionally.
>
> Is this change to the regions not a step back to colonialism?
>
> Anyway, what I would really like to see, is a more balanced regional
> division. Look at the 'facts' (population and territory) of the present
> regions within ICANN:
>
> Asia-Pacific			3798		15,568
> Africa                           840		11,698
> Europa				 728		 8,875
> Latin America-Caribbean		 531		 7,964
> North America			 319		 7,699
>
> (Source: http://www.prb.org/pdf/WorldPopulationDS02_Eng.pdf)
>
> The proposed changes don't influence these numbers much as they concern
> mainly small islands. There is no improvement in them, as far as I can
> see.
>
> Some may find it important to take the number of internet users into
> account. Here are some data (for what they are worth):
>
> Europe          190
> Asia/Pacific    187
> US/Canada       183
> Latin America   33
> Africa          6
> Middle East     5
>
> (Source: http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/)
>
> This would suggest 3 regions not 5:
>
> America                         216
> Europe, Africa                  196
> Asia/Pacific/Middle East        192
>
>
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