Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) Regional Office Executive Director, Charles Sha'ban, was selected by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Nominating Committee (NomCom) to be a member of the Country-Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) for a three-year term that ends in 2007.
"I am very honored with this nomination which demonstrates that we, in this part of the world, are being recognized for our constant contributions to the global Internet developments," Sha'ban stated.
This nomination is very significant mainly because of its direct connection to drawing the ICANN policies regarding domain names and numeric addresses that reach all computers on the Internet.
"I believe it's crucial to be part of the decision making process when formulating such policies and decisions, since on the long run we will be definitely affected by each of them," Sha'ban said.
The ccNSO is a policy-development body that is responsible for developing and recommending to the Board of ICANN global policies relating to country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs); nurturing consensus across the ccNSO's community, including the name-related activities of ccTLDs; and coordinating with other ICANN Supporting Organizations, committees, and constituencies under ICANN.
It consists of: three ccNSO Council members selected by the ccNSO members within each of ICANN's Geographic Regions (Europe, Asia / Australia / Pacific, Latin America / Caribbean islands, Africa, and North America), (ii) three ccNSO Council members selected by the ICANN Nominating Committee; (iii) liaisons; and (iv) observers.
The final selection of four 'slates' of Nominees for four of ICANN's leadership bodies; the Board of Directors, the ccNSO, the Council of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) and the Interim At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) was announced October 11.
"At the end of ICANN's annual meeting that will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, December 1-5, 2004, we [the Nominees] will join the already seated members of these bodies," he added.
Including Sha'ban, the NomCom has selected the nine nominees out of 84 candidates from all over the Globe. The Nominees for the four ICANN's leadership bodies are: Vinton G. Cerf, Joichi Ito and Vanda Scartezini to the ICANN Board, Yassin Mshana and Eva Fr?lich to the ccNSO, Maureen Cubberley to the GNSO Council, Roberto Gaetano and Jean Armour Polly to the Interim At Large Advisory Committee.
As the only representative of the region in the ccNSO, Sha'ban pledged to deliver the concerns of those involved in Internet and Intellectual Property fields to the ICANN's Board.
In Jordan, he noted that he would "maintain his direct contacts with government and private bodies to coordinate efforts in the fields of Internet and Intellectual Property."
ICANN is a non-profit organization responsible for coordinating the global Internet systems of unique identifiers. However, its role in leading the Internet worldwide was the core of dispute in many cases. The involvement of governments and private sectors in leading the Internet heated up debate in recent years.
"I believe that governments should be involved in drawing the policies of their ccTLDs since it's part of each country's sovereignty. However, technical matters and how to run those domains should be left to the private sector," Sha'ban pointed out.
Sha'ban chaired the ICANN Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Working Group during 2003. Currently, he is an active member of the ICANN Business, Registrar and Intellectual Property Constituencies, in addition to his Board membership at the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC), and his membership in the International Trademark Association (INTA), and in the Registration Practice & DNS Administration Subcommittee of the INTA Internet Committee.
AGIP, which is a member of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization, is the largest and most dynamic intellectual property protection firm in the Arab world. AGIP has 29 offices in the Arab countries, Turkey, Pakistan and India with Liaison offices in Canada, France, UK and China.
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For more information, please visit http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-11oct04.htm
© Press Release 2006
