The chief arbitration institutions in Beijing and Hong Kong will
set up a centre next February to settle disputes over Internet
domain names, it was announced on December 16.
The Asian Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Centre is the brainchild
of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration
Commission (CIETAC) and the Hong
Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC). The centre will
be the fourth centre in the world authorized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) to settle domain-name disputes in
relation to generic top-level
domains (gTLDs). It will also be the only such centre in
Asia.
Wang Shengchang, deputy chairman of the commission in Beijing,
said: "Asia has enjoyed rapid economic growth as well as an
increase in Internet users. There is room for the expansion of the
business (of resolving domain-name disputes)."
Some 7,000 disputes have been undertaken by the world's other three
dispute-settlement centres for top-level domains - the Centre for
Public Resources Institute for Dispute Resolution and the National
Arbitration Forum, both in the United States, and the Arbitration
and Mediation Centre under the World Intellectual Property
Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.
Wang said he expected the centre to handle between 20 and 200 cases
each month in its first year.
"The first year will provide a test ground for our future expansion
of business," he said.
If
the Beijing-Hong Kong project proves successful, the centre will
expand to include arbitration institutions in Asia as a whole.
Christopher To, secretary-general of the Hong Kong centre, said the
new centre would have a competitive edge over the World
Intellectual Property Organization due to its new online system and
its ability to operate in the Chinese language.
"As time goes by, traditional arbitration will drop and on-line
arbitration will increase," he said. "The younger generation is
coming in and they would like to have disputes heard at the click
of a button."
(
China Daily
December 17, 2001)