Hi all,

Michael Palage has nominated me to run for the permanent Names Council as one of the three representatives of the Registrar Constituency. I hereby accept the nomination and, as requested, send somehting like a CV.

I was born in Barcelona (Catalonia; EU) in 1961

After obtaining my law degree from the Universitat de Barcelona in 1985. I continued my legal education in different postgraduate and research programs at the Centre Européen Universtair of the Univerity of Nancy II (France), the Institut d’Études Européenes of the Free Univertiy Brussels and the European Univerity Insitute at Florence (Italy).

I also spent a year and a half at the European Commission’s DGIV, the Directorate Gerneral in charge of competition policy (antitrust).

I currently teach Eurpean Law (Insitiutional and Economic), Competition Law and Internet Law at ESADE Law School-Universitat Ramon Llull, a private univerity where I also serve as Director of the European Documentation Center.

Since 1997, where I startd acting asLegal & Policy Advisor to the Catalan Reserach Foundation (FCR) and its domain-name registrtion department, Nominalia I have spent all my time between the Univerity and DNS-related efforts, therby nearly closing my private attorney practice.

When the Green Paper came, I actively participated in the campagin against that unaaceptable porposal, especially in Europe. In that sense I serve in the so-called European Commisison panel of partidcipants (EC-PoP) and I have participated in all its meetings and telecofnerences to date.

Once the more acceptable White Ppaer appeared I participated in the Geneva, Singapore and Buenos Aires meetings of the IFWP /International Forum on the White Paper) and served in its Steering Committee.

I also organized in Barcelona the firts meeting of the DNSO formation process, and have attended the other three formation meetings at Monterrey, Washington and Singapore, also serving in their organising committees. I also was among the promoters of the so-called BMW DNSO application,

I have attended all the ICANN meetings so far, and I also drafted and submitted the Regstratr Constiuency charter for recognition during the Berlin meeting.

I was elected as provisional NC representative by this consituency last June. Besdies my work within the NC I have also co-chhaired Working Group A on the unfirom dispute resolution policy.

In one sentence, I have been very present during all this process for the last three years. Perhaps "too" present?

One thing that I can promise if I am elected to the NC is lots of dedication and effort. I think that my past record proves that this is not unlikely to be the case.

As for what I stand for, I believe, and come to this process to defend, a basic set of principles.

I beleive that the DNS needs a self-governance structure that allows competition as the driving economic force; an international perspective and framework that prevents any single government form trying to apply domestic solutions guided by local political needs; a stable and scalable DNS that includes an expansion of the gTLD space in the first stage, and possibly other type of TLDs (neither genric nor territorially conceived) in a second stage. And I believe that prior tosuch reform we need to provide solutions that will guarantee that no reform will increase the potential for conflicts of the DNS and provide for viable alternatives, other than often impossible recourse to courts. Finally, we need a widely accepted strucutre able to implement all these reforms and monitor the process.

ICANN and its current structure is far form being my favorite answer. For one thing it is so complicated that few people fully undertand how it works, while probably inflating the real costs. But we registrars absolutely need "one" strucutre that pilots the process towards increased competiion within the exising gTLD psace (an area where the situation is far form being satisfactory) and, indeed, allowing for a relatively quick addition of new gTLDs. Despite our possible dissatisfactions and worriess I think that we’re all be better off supporting as strongly as we could the current ICANN, work hard to make sure it is viable (including working out a funding plan) and workable (solving unresolved issues as the at large membership) and deplouying as mucheffort as we could to counter the increasing weight and itnerest exerced by governments.

Butm all in all, I am a lawyer, I know that when I am appointed to represent somebody I am supposed to defend the views of those I represent. Or resign.

Amadeu

PS: To make things clear, I am not an emplorye, director or shareholder of Nominalia. Only their external Legal advisor. As I have said, Nominalia is 100% subsidiary of the Catalan Research Foundation a private foundation with public and private funding in charge of fostering research activites.. FCR has a tradition in pioneering Internet-related effots, like building and managing the Cataln Scientific Ring (the academic network), the Catalan Super Computing center or starting the first ISP many years ago. FCR considers that it is its duty to start risky activites when independnet market forces are still unable or unsure to participate (think that we are a small country, and even lack the structure of an independent state), assume the responsibility to devote time, effort and ressources in heling those efforts to succeed (like this case in all really consuming Internet Governance effots) and eventually spin off the activity when it becomes a pourly commercial venture. This is to say that FCR will continue this support to Nominalia at least until the "political" and strucutral deadlocks are still there, while it might very likely change hands when we are thru the current situation and things become really a purely commercial activity. But Nominalia as registrar will remain.