A.M. Rutkowski wrote:
> Someone should let the new ICANN-IANA know that
> their statement:
>
> "...a table known as ISO-3166-1, which is
> maintained by an agency of the United Nations."
>
> is not accurate. The Organization for International
> Standardization (ISO) is a private standards organization.
> It does make a difference.
>
> --tony
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), as it is actually
called, is a 'private standards organization' with a difference, namely that
its members are either government agencies or non-profit non-governmental
bodies which explicitly serve the public interest in standardization. ISO
is not part of the United Nations, but the vast majority of its members are
representatives of ca. 130 of the same nations which comprise the United
Nations.
So instead of ICANN changing the offending reference which Tony has noted
from "an agency of the United Nations" to: "a private standards
organization," I would suggest: "a worldwide federation of national
standards bodies." This is the ISO's own description of itself, found at
<http://www.iso.ch/infoe/intro.htm#What is ISO>.
To the extent that 'makes a difference' that ISO is 'private,' one should
not consider it private in the sense that the Global Internet Project
<http://www.gip.org/> or the Association for Interactive Media
<http://www.interactivehq.org/index.htm> are private. Rather, the ISO (and
its American member, ANSI) are non-governmental agencies which serve the
public interest, not the narrow interests of profit at the expense of the
public interest which drive the GIP and AIM.
For ICANN to work, it needs to acquire the kind of legitimacy which ANSI and
ISO enjoy. That is, recognition by all (okay, almost all) parties involved,
based on widespread confidence that it can impartially carry out its work in
the public interest.
There is more than one kind of 'private organization'. It is worthwhile
going a little further and explaining what one means by 'private' because, a
s Tony says, "it does make a difference." Some kinds of private
organizations are more appropriate than others when the global public
interest in the governance of the Internet is involved.
Craig McTaggart
Graduate Student
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
