[alac] About languages in UDRP

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/04/2152235&mode=nested

It is an interesting and important issue, in my opinion.

This deals with a dispute between Dassault, one of the biggest French
companies, and the Korean registrant of dassault.com (which might as well be
a cybersquatter - this won't be the point of the discussion here).

The UDRP says that a dispute has to be conducted in the language of the
Registration Agreement (which, in this case, was obviously Korean) unless
the Panel decides otherwise.

In this case, when the defendant asked that the case be conducted in Korean,
the Panel decided that, since he had already sent messages in English
(including the one to raise this point, I think), he knew English and so the
dispute should have been conducted in English to save time and money for
Dassault (see 6.A at
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2003/d2003-0989.html)

I don't have a final opinion on this, but it seems very worrying to me that,
just because you made the effort to respond in English at the beginning of
the proceeding (possibly because the complaint you received was in
English!), you shall be condemned to use English, rather than your own
language, for the rest of the proceeding.

Thinking that guarantees for the defendant - such as the ability to use
his/her own language - are to be waived because they would be a "waste of
time and money" for the complainant goes against any idea of due process
that even non-lawyers like me bear in mind.

What do you think? If others agree, we might raise the issue within ICANN,
and perhaps ask that the rules are changed so that it is not in the Panel's
discretion to change the language of the proceeding, but that such change
may only happen if all parties agree.
-- 
vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
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