D Stein wrote <snip,snip> >There are always variations on the same theme, but it all comes back >to what you said: it's an attempt to create new via some sort of >binding (or partly-binding) contractual mechanism. It just won't fly. >The whole world would probably accept non-binding in an instant and we >could move on (that's just my personal opinion, BTW). Unfortunately, >every time we all seem to agree on the concept someone slips in some >wording that is somehow less than perfectly non-binding. Sigh. >Bill Lovell wrote: >> When WIPO proposes to impose a mandatory arbitration scheme that could >> divest a party of a domain name that under U.S. contract and trademark law >> (or the law of any other involved country) would still be protected, then >> it would >> be changing "the substantive rules of Intellectual Property Law." When it >> proposes that it would even presume to make decisions in such an area, it >> acts contrary to international law in that it would presume to decide matters >> affecting the citizens of other countries without the governments of those >> countries having given it authority to do so. There are three quite separate points here - general harmonisation of practice/law and how to achieve that harmonisation, what the harmonised law should be, and effective dispute resolution in an international context used by both large and small organisations. There are competing interests on a practical level (I thought that Vint Cerf's summary explained clearly why). Some rules need to be implemented for resolution of these interests, both substantive and procedural. Some kind of world wide consistency of approach on these issues seems eminently desirable. The substantive issues need to be agreed, the most likely routes for international agreement being WIPO or GATT. We could leave it all to national case law but that is likely to be inconsistent, and expensive. Either route will undoubtedly take a very long time, presumably hence WIPO's preference for changing practice rather than substantive law. NSI's and other registries' practice does have real effects on the legal rights of domain name holders and others at the moment, and will continue to have, so it is just as important to get that right as to get the substantive law right.How that should be done is a matter for debate, but it seems fairly clear that the current pract! ice is not entirely satisfactory
