RE: [ga] America's Cup

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

At 11:39 15/12/99 -0600, John B. Reynolds wrote:
>IANAL, but I doubt that the lack of a direct contractual relationship
>between NSI registry and the registrant would prevent a US court from
>determining that it has jurisdiction over a .com/.net/.org dispute involving
>a non-US registrar based on the registry's US location.
>

John and all,

You are right, it doesn't. But a  US court needs several solid links to the
US forum to determine that it can apply any "long arm" statutes to overseas
defendants.

Certainly there is no general right of a US court to claim jurisdiction
over a .com/.net/.org dispute  without considering a host of other
determining factors.
Any unreasonable interpretations of such factors is bound to create
profound unease with the hundreds of thousands non-US .com registrants. 
"Long arm" statutes are already highly controversial because they can
conflict with constitutional requirements of due process.
When it concerns defendants from countries with different legal systems,
that do not have reciprocal long arm statutes designed to haul US residents
into overseas courts, they are likely to be contrary to elementary notions
of fair administration of justice.






--Joop Teernstra LL.M.--  , bootstrap  of
the Cyberspace Association,
the constituency for Individual Domain Name Owners
http://www.idno.org  (or direct:) 
http://www.democracy.org.nz/idno/