Roeland Meyer wrote:
> At 08:18 AM 4/2/99 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
> >On Thu, Apr 01, 1999 at 10:44:41PM -0800, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> >[...]
> >
> >> >Uh, Roeland, if ICANN decides that it needs to change to a Swiss
> >> >corporation, what are you going to do? Sue in Swiss Court? Do you
> >> >have a Swiss trademark?
> >>
> >> Irrelevant, they're definitely NOT going to do that, the USG won't let
> >> them, period. Are you going to claim otherwise?
> >
> >1) Yes, I am going to claim otherwise. The USG has an oversight
> >role for ICANN at this point in time; that won't continue
> >indefinitely. The USG has made that very clear, and there is strong
> >pressure from other governments to get the USG out of this role.
>
> ... and stronger pressure from Congress to keep it in the USA.
>
>
IMHO, it is evident that USG does not have the power to keep ICANN in the
USA, but also that ICANN has no reason whatsoever to come to such a radical
decision to incorporate somewhere else.
We have today a situation that privileges US versus other countries and
governments. I believe that ICANN is ready to accept this statu quo,
provided that USG does not pushes it too far, and I also believe that USG is
happy with this situation.
To affirm (or to try to affirm) that US has (or will have, or should have)
exclusive jurisdiction on gTLD allocation or dispute resolution in this
matter is a good example of "pushing the thing too far" that nobody has
interest in exploiting to the ultimate consequences.
What soemtimes we lose sight of, is that seldom in the real world people
that have to take dramatic decisions that will influence the life of
thousands of people will do this on the basis of pure consideration of
strength: before taking radical decisions, the diplomatic way is usually
tried out, and luckily situations in which we go to a war (in the real or
figured sense) are a small percentage of the situations that could
potentially lead to a war.
Regards
Roberto
