Ukraine request yikes

Tue Mar 1 20:27:20 UTC 2022

> More or less.  The Government Advisory Committee member from Ukraine has asked ICANN to:
> - Revoke .RU, .рф, and .SU (all Russian-managed ccTLDs)
>
> As the GAC member undoubtedly knows, that’s not how ICANN works. Barring a court/executive order in ICANN’s jurisdiction (and even then, it gets a bit sticky see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/11/13/dc-court-rules-that-top-level-domain-not-subject-to-seizure/), ICANN essentially treats ccTLDs as national sovereign resources. A third party, no matter how justified, requesting a change of this nature will not go anywhere. Simply put, ICANN is NOT a regulator in the forma sense, it is a private entity incorporated in California. The powers that it has are the result of mutual contractual obligations and it’s a bit unlikely the Russian government has entered into any contracts with ICANN, particularly those that would allow ICANN to unilaterally revoke any of the Russian ccTLDs.

I wonder how ICANN would react to ISO removing RU/RUS from ISO 3166-2/3.

Rubens