Review of ICANN Regions - Further Overseas Territory Perspective

["Lee Humphries" <lee.humphries@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Further to David Archbold's comments, with which I largely
agree, it seems that in allocating which countries belong
in what regions too much emphasis has been given to
current or even historical political associations (by that
I mean dependant territories), rather than to the more 
obvious geographic, trade or even ethnic connections.

There is another issue related to this allocation of "who 
goes where".  Currently the North American region has a 
very small number of members relative to the other regions 
and yet it still is guaranteed one director.  While some 
may consider this appropriate, considering the sheer 
number of Internet 'users' in the North American region, 
that isn't what this level of representation is about.

As David pointed out the six UN regions have already been 
compressed into five.  That means that a committee has 
already found the UN regions inadequate for ICANN 
purposes.  It therefore seems falicious to argue that the 
use of a modified UN region list meets the criteria of 
"existing international norms for regional distribution of 
countries".

Going further with that thought, scanning through the 
previous discussions on this there doesn't seem to be such 
a thing as "existing international norms for regional 
distribution of countries".  Most of these 'norms' seem to 
fall down because they are continental-centric in their 
approach.

Maybe the fastest way to get this right is to get every 
ccTLD to declare what region they believe they belong to, 
WITHOUT prescribing the list of regions in advance.  For 
instance, many Pacfic Island countries would simply state 
that they belong to the Pacific - with no reference to 
Asia.  Having done such a survey ICANN would have not only 
a reasonable declaration as to what region each ccTLD 
believes it belongs to but also an excellent sampling as 
to what regions it should have.

Regards,
Lee Humphries
Assistant Manager Information Services
Solomon Telekom Company Limited
www.telekom.com.sb
www.sbnic.net.sb
.sb ccTLD