[ncdnhc-discuss] Draft Names Council resolution on the reservation of geographical and geopolitical names October 2001 (amended)

[Nilda Vany Martinez Grajales]

Dear NC fellows:

Please find below the amended proposal of the draft Names Council
Resolution on the reservation of geographical and geopolitical names

As Always comments are welcome.

Best Regards
Vany


Draft Names Council resolution on the reservation of geographical and
geopolitical names October 2001 v4

Whereas,
in a communiqué made by the Government Advisory Council (GAC) at its
Montevideo meeting
http://www.icann.org/committees/gac/communique-09sep01.htm "the GAC
recommends that the names of countries and distinct economies,
particularly those contained in the ISO 3166-1 standard, as applied by
ICANN in identifying ccTLDs, should be reserved by the .info Registry,
(or if registered in the Sunrise Period challenged by the Registry and,
if successful, then reserved) in Latin characters in their official
language(s) and in English and assigned to the corresponding governments
and public authorities, at their request, for use. These names in other
IDN character sets should be reserved in the same way as soon as they
become available"

Whereas,
in the same communiqué the GAC further "draws the attention of ICANN and
the Registries to the fact that a large number of other names, including
administrative sub-divisions of countries and distinct economies as
recognised in international fora, may give rise to contested
registrations. Accordingly the GAC recommends that Registrars and
eventual Registrants should be made aware of this".

Whereas,
 the ICANN Board in reaction to this communiqué has resolved
http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-10sep01.htm  [01.92], "the
General Counsel is directed to take appropriate action to preserve the
Board's ability to take action with respect to the registration in .info
of names of countries and distinct economies contained in the ISO 3166-1
list"

Whereas, 
the recent report from WIPO The Recognition of Rights and the Use of
Names in the Internet Domain Name System
http://wipo2.wipo.int/process2/report   concludes:
"For geographical identifiers, ... it is recognized that certain norms
exist at the international level which prohibit false and deceptive
indications of geographical source on goods and which protect
geographical indications, or the names of geographical localities with
which goods having particular characteristics derived from that locality
are associated.  However, these rules apply to trade in goods and may
require some adaptation to deal with the perceived range of problems
with the misuse of geographical indications in the DNS.  Furthermore,
the lack of an international agreed list of geographical indications
would pose significant problems for the application of the UDRP in this
area because of the need to make difficult choices of applicable law. 
It is suggested that the international framework in this area needs to
be further advanced before an adequate solution is available to the
misuse of geographical indications in the DNS.  As far as other
geographical terms are concerned, the Report produces considerable
evidence of the widespread registration of the names of countries,
places within countries and indigenous peoples as domain names by
persons unassociated with the countries, places or peoples.  However,
these areas are not covered by existing international laws and a
decision needs to be taken as to whether such laws ought to be
developed".

Whereas,
the WIPO report shows that seeking to extend coverage to anything
narrower that the ISO 3166 country list is fraught with problems some of
which have occupied the WTO and other fora for years due to conflicts
arising:
between geo-political indicators e.g. Venice Italy, Venice CA; Los
Angeles California USA, Los Angeles Panama City Panama.
* between geographical indicators and descriptors e.g. Chablis (French
wine region and Chablis-style wines from California).
* between geographical indications and trademarks e.g. Torres (a
Portuguese village that grows vines and Torres, a Spanish winemaker), 
* between geo-political and geographic indications of origin e.g. Parma
the town and Parma ham.

Whereas, 
the recent expansion of top-level domain names by ICANN has been a
limited rather cautious test and included the names dot biz, dot name
and dot info as well as chartered domain names, and that the implication
of this expansion is that there are more to come in the near future.

Whereas, 
the dot info registry has adopted the UDRP to enable the return of names
acquired in bad faith.

Whereas,
the ICANN Board has approved initiatives relating to Multilingual Domain
Names and these initiatives have yet to complete their work,


The Names Council advises:

1. That while it understands the concerns of the GAC, caution should be
exercised to avoid a short-term reaction to a problem that is not
inherent to dot info but a function of a restriction in the supply of
domain names.

3. That retrospective action of the kind GAC seeks in other domain names
is damaging to suppliers and confusing to users.

4. That, due to the inherent complexity, the best forum for governments
to seek solutions to the problems perceived by the GAC is the existing
forum of such expertise, namely the inter-governmental specialised UN
agency, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 

The Names Council therefore calls upon the ICANN Board:
a) to recommend to the GAC that it reconsiders its recommendation in
this matter in the light of the WIPO processes and the recent WIPO
report The Recognition of Rights and the Use of Names in the Internet
Domain Name System,  and, 
b) to propose a specific work item on this issue to be conducted by WIPO
building on the work outlined in the aforementioned report; and
c) to encourage the GAC and all interested parts of the ICANN structure
to contribute to WIPO's work in this respect.  



-- 
Nilda Vany Martinez Grajales
Information Technology Specialist
Sustainable Development Networking Programme/Panama
Tel: (507) 317-0169
http://www.sdnp.org.pa
e-mail:  vany at sdnp.org.pa