In a meeting last week the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) denied the competing requests from Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic for the last country-level domain, .eh. The issue had been brewing for a little while and it seems ICANN has opted to keep things that way.But supporting the status quo doesn't mean remaining neutral, as anyone who knows why France vetoes adding a human rights component to MINURSO knows. Here's what the ICANN minutes say:
ICANN does not see a way to approve the .EH ccTLD delegation to one of the applicants without violating its long-standing policy unless the contesting parties are able to reach an agreement, either through their current negotiations, or through some alternate means.Judging by how negotiations are going (not at all), there's not going to be an agreement soon. Organizations like ICANN need to start acting like Western Sahara is an independent country so it someday can be. Getting its own domain name wouldn't mean drastic changes for Western Sahara, but it would mean more people are aware of the Moroccan occupation. Surely that's worth a break in ICANN protocol?
Commiserate at doteh.org.