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)