Re: [ga] Mr. Qaddafi Salutes Verisign

[Joanna Lane <jo-uk@rcn.com>]

on 11/18/01 12:39 PM, John Berryhill at john@johnberryhill.com wrote:

> If the Iraqis want a domain name and they don't want
> to induce a violation of US law, then they can go register with a European
> registrar.  It is that simple.

Actually no, they can't necessarily. While European nations are indeed free
to trade without fear of prosecution under US embargoes.
http://www.eurunion.org/news/press/1998-2/pr43-98.htm, the EU has stated its
support most emphatically for the US Coalition for the War on Terrorism, and
numerous new regulations are being introduced in that respect every day by
its Council.  The EU Council has requested the UN give consideration to any
measure facilitating mutual assistance with third countries concerning the
prevention of terrorism, and even before Sep 11, the EU had been pro-active
in setting up the first International Criminal Court. Clearly the EU does
recognize the need for developing international laws for certain crimes,
such as crimes against humanity etc., which the sale of domain names to
terrorists actually promotes.
http://www.eurunion.org/news/press/1998-2/pr40-98.htm

In relation to specific trade sanctions in force in the 15 EU member
nations, these are imposed not only by individual government decisions, but
also by United Nations Security Council Resolutions. For example, I believe
the laser guns Bill cites, are restricted from being exported from the UK to
all destinations worldwide, in other words, no export license could be
obtained by a UK business for any reason, regardless of US federal
regulations or UN sanctions. Equally, if the UN lifts sanctions against a
country, and an EU member nation does not have its own national laws in
place against that country, then yes, that country is free to trade,
regardless of what US Federal law may states.

The documentation is immense, so I do not know specifically whether selling
technology of the DNS kind to IRAQ by any one of the ICANN accredited
European Registrars is lawful or not, but as stated above, it would be very
surprising if either the UN, European Council or any government of the EU's
member nations condoned such a step if the US stated it wished such activity
to stop and indeed, enforced such steps under existing US law. That part is
simple I agree.


Regards,

Joanna


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