RE: Draft New Draft

[Elisabeth PORTENEUVE <Elisabeth.PORTENEUVE@cetp.ipsl.fr>]

Anthony Van Couvering wrote:
> 
> 1. ISO codes do not match up to countries only, but also to territories of
> various descriptions -- including overseas departments (e.g. Guadeloupe,
> Martinique, St. Pierre & Miquelon); protectorates and dependencies (e.g.
> Guam); internationally administered territories (e.g., Antarctica); disputed
> territories/provinces (e.g., East Timor, Taiwan), countries with disputed
> government (e.g., Afghanistan), and countries with no ISO code (e.g.,
> Palestine).
> 
==> Anthony,

    We do agree that ISO3166 match up territories not countries,
    and that RFC1591 states correctly:
          "The IANA is not in the business of deciding
          what is and what is not a country."
    I hope we do agree that governements are in the business
    of understanding sovereignty issues -- so let's rely on their work.
    For exemple the US Government keeps on line
    two files:
          http://www.state.gov/www/regions/independent_states.html
               ("Independent States in the World")
    and 
          http://www.state.gov/www/regions/dependencies.html
               ("Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereinty")
    According to that Guam is under US sovereinty, Afganistan is
    a sovereign country, the legal status of Antarctica
    remains in suspense under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959,
    ... etc.

    The a priori knowledge of the management and the policy rules
    of one TLD is a key issue for every kind of conflictual situation
    which may arise between any two or more stakeholders (beyond the
    domain names disputes -- think about electronic commerce or
    privacy concerns).
    May I quote Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz> message
    sent to membership@icann.org:
     | Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 12:19:35 +1200
     | To: Daniel Kaplan <dkaplan@terra-nova.fr>, membership@icann.org
     | From: Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>
     | Subject: RE: [Membership] The People's Republic of ICANN?
     | <snip>
     | People do not really become aware of the issues unless
     | they can empathise with the problems of the the
     | lack of security of a (much larger) investment in a website,
     | have been attacked by a TM owner, have registered a TM
     | themselves, have been treatened with deletion by a
     | registry, or threatened by an telco-ISP  with phone cutoff
     | over a billing dispute re a DN.
     | And I'm not even talking about the issues on the
     | horizon. (crypto and censorship)

    The US White Paper which is on the basis of current process states:
    "Of course, national governments now have, and will continue to have,
    authority to manage or establish policy for their own ccTLDs."

Amicalement,
Elisabeth Porteneuve