Re: [gnso-geo-dg] ICANN regions - quick history

["Anthony Harris" <harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Philip,

Although you make a valid point, I see some problems
with this approach. Obviously the UN list is predicated
on the territorial expanse concept of "continents", and
thus Australia justifies "Oceania" as a region.

The only problem is that as far as a reasonable distribution
of stakeholders is concerned, essentially Australia and New
Zealand would constitute one of the five regions, and in
bundling Canada and the U.S. together with Latin America
and the Caribbean, you come up with a huge imbalance
with respect to Oceania...

I beleive the geographic distribution as exemplified by the
RIRs is a much more balanced approach. 

In the days when ICANN was being created, the Latin America
region was very pro-active in insisting on their own region, and
from this LACNIC emerged as a natural consequence. I am sure
that any intent to bundle Latin America into a region with Canada
and the U.S., will not be supported by people from this part of
the world.

Tony Harris

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Philip Sheppard 
  To: gnso-geo-dg@xxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 5:42 AM
  Subject: [gnso-geo-dg] ICANN regions - quick history


  Thanks Rob, for that useful set of links.
  It once again demonstrates a classic ICANN problem - and one entirely of its 
own making.

  The problem
  The Board back in 2000 and the GAC both agreed that ICANN should not be in 
the game of geo-political allocation but should use international norms and 
agreed upon the UN list.
  The Board told staff to do so.
  Unfortunately for everyone concerned the set of 5 ICANN regions had already 
been determined in the original 1998 bylaws:
  Europe; Asia/Australia/Pacific; Latin America/Caribbean islands; Africa; 
North America.

  These regions were NOT the UN ones:
  Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania

  So (rather than getting the Board to change the bylaws) staff went about 
allocating countries from the UN list to the regions determined by the author 
of ICANN's 1998 bylaws (a US lawyer who shall remain nameless).
  In so doing ICANN engaged in exactly the process it wanted to avoid - 
geo-political allocation. 
  Hence the mess we are in identified in the CCSO report.

  The solution
  Amend the bylaws to update ICANN's 5 regions to the 5 UN ones.

  Philip