Re: [wg-b] Re: ICANN's Mandate

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 19:31 10.10.99 -0700, d3nnis wrote:
>I agree with you that Congress has given a legislative mandate
>to DOC for specified things:  that is indisputable.
>
>Whether Congress authorized DOC to extend the Lanham Act
>to domain names is the gist of my question.  It clearly did not.
>
>So when the White Paper authorized "someone" to look into
>protections for famous marks, it is appropriate to ask "Where and
>when did DOC receive Congressional authorization to regulate
>this area?"

This may be interesting, but fundamentally irrelevant.

ICANN is created in order to manage *contractual* obligations in an 
*international* context.
The question before us is how these *contractual* obligations should be 
formulated in such a way that conflict with the laws of the various 
countries, and the international treaties to which various countries are 
signatories, is minimized.

I regard the question of who has authorized who to do what to American law 
as fundamentally irrelevant to our inquiry.

                               Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no