I fear that here I am with my "keep it simple" hat on again.
Working with organizations that had to carve the globe up into
regions, two easy lessons learned are: One borrowed from design
=> Form follows Function. Why does the organization need
regions and what does the organization intend to do on a
region-by-region basis? The other is that no scheme is perfect.
Some regions will have no home (usually for geopolitical reasons)
and some will be settled in a home with less than full consensus
(for practical or geopolitical reasons). One source of conflict is
that regional designation may come with entitlements, for example
funds or votes from the designating body. Struggles over
entitlements should not dominate the core issues of why and what
for.
For the remit of ICANN with regard to, for example, data retention
issues, the nature of local legal structures need not be an ICANN
factor in designating regions. When an issue such as data
retention policy in the European Community boils to the top, the
stakeholder regions self-organize to represent themselves around
the issue, irrespective of how ICANN has organized the regions. As
well, appealing to a law based scheme is problematic. For example,
even figuring out where to put Canada in a law based scheme
is difficult. Parts of Canadian law come from the English (and
Scots) common law system.
Independently Quebec
retains a civil private law system. The responsibilities of public
and private law are
separated and exercised
exclusively by the Parliament and the provinces respectively.
Canada's engagement, as a country, in any ICANN issue,will be
determined by the nature of the issue, not by it's ICANN regional
designation. If its position is based on ICANN conflicts with
national laws, so be it. That is the issue to be addressed.
Lastly, if there were no ICANN entitlements would there still be a
regional designation issue?
Sam L.
On 31/03/2016 4:11 PM, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
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Hi Kathy,
Thanks for your comments. I just wanted to pick up on
something; you mentioned that (similar, presumably)
legal structures should be one of our guiding
instruments in the new geographic regions framework.
What were you thinking of here? That in the GAC, ICANN
should be measuring how many members have common and
civil law along with, say, Sharia law provisions, in
relation to the total number of countries in the world
with those legal systems? How valuable would that be?
I am not a lawyer so my understanding of this topic
is very limited: I thought every country's legal system
had its own identity - though some have been inherited
from or influenced by colonialism, or another factor -
so I'm not certain as to what we would be trying to
achieve here. What type of diversity would you like to
see in terms of legal structures?