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Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:31:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Mawaki Chango <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [gnso-idn-wg] Issues list item
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Hi,

--- Avri Doria <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> My concern is anything that would give a government, or a
> government  
> sponsored organization, control over a script/alphabet.
> 
> I know that I may be appear to be contracting myself with two  
> different positions:
> 
> - one that the language community should be protected from loss of 
> 
> the their naming resources to Northern business interests
> - that governments should not be in the position of deciding on the
>  
> appropriateness of an application for IDN TLD or SLD

I guess governements may be just another organization being part of
their language community. In that case, ICANN could rely on its
consensus building and decision making procedures, paying careful
attention to what governements have to say. This, in my humble view,
should not require the argument of sovereignty.

> 
> That leaves the idea of the language community having some say. 
> but  
> the notion of language commnuinty is still somewhat unclear to me
> if  
> we remove all notions of sovereignty.  Not only does ICANN not have
> a  
> construct, similar perhaps to constituencies, to cover language  
> communities, but I know of no way of defining membership in a  
> community (e.g. questions such as: is speaking enough, or reading,
> or  
> writing?  does someone need to be a native speaker/reader/writer?  
> does the inability to read preclude membership?  if one emigrates  
> from the predominant land of the language do they lose their  
> membership in the community? does learning a language bring one
> into  
> the linguistic community? if so how much does one need to learn to 
> 
> gain entry into the language community? if a company hires someone 
> 
> who is a meber of the linguistic community do they gain 'rights'  
> within that linguistic community?).
> 
> The quandary I find myself stuck in is finding a balance that  
> protects the potential (developing nation) registrant from  
> exploitation, without developing/supporting notions of linguistic  
> sovereignty or investing new levels of authority on ICANN
> processes.

Yeah, plus score of metaphysical questions that can be asked about
identity, etc. But unfortunately, we can't afford that luxury, nor
that of micro-managing all the related issues. Some simpler ideas we
may keep in mind along the way include:

- the cultural variable is an essential component of any definition
of linguistic community;

- there is no objective and self-sustaining way to define who is
entitled to what cultural identity (not to mention those with
multi-cultural identity.) so as far as individuals are concerned,
they belong to cultures and linguistic communities they claim or
recognize themeselves in. they can still have their say, but it is
more likely that if they seriously want to make a difference, they
would need to join their claimed community in some sort of collective
action.

- as to legal entities, I guess it is simpler to determine their
statuts as per their incorporation, from which derives their
"nationality" or the legal system they are answerable to. we may well
talk about global corporations, but they are still
registered/incorporated somewhere, be it in a single or in several
countries, which constitue the basis where all sorts of legal
consequences derive from; obviously, the nationality or linguitic
skills of the CEO would not be enough to claim rights over any
language scripts in the DNS.

Mawaki

> 
> a.
>