Following our discussion over the weekend concerning the proposed charter for the CWG to develop a framework for the use of country and territory names as TLDs, if you are interested in further background information you may want to review the report of the ccNSO Study Group on the Use of Country and Territory names which formed the basis for the creation of this CWG (see http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/unct-final-08sep12-en.pdf). In short, the study developed the following comments & recommendations:

1. the IDN ccTLD string is a meaningful representation in a designated language of the territory, and

2. only one string per designated language

If adopted the IDN ccTLD policy should be reviewed in five years, which includes a review of these restrictions.

Based on that, the study group recommended that the ccNSO Council establish a cross community working group to:

Further review the current status of representations of country and territory names, as they exist under current ICANN policies, guidelines and procedures;
Provide advice regarding the feasibility of developing a consistent and uniform definitional framework that could be applicable across the respective SO’s and AC’s; and
Should such a framework be deemed feasible, provide detailed advice as to the content of the framework.

The GNSO, ALAC and GAC should be invited to participate in such a WG.

B. In light of the need for further work on the treatment of country and territory names, the complexity of the issue at hand and the aforementioned inconsistencies between various ICANN policies, it is also recommended that the ccNSO Council request that the ICANN Board extend the current rule in the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook regarding the exclusion of all country and territory names in all languages, for consecutive rounds of new gTLD applications.

I hope this is helpful.

Best regards,

Marika