Re: Relays, Blacklists, and Laws (was: spam-tools?)

[Paul Wouters <]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Piet Beertema wrote:

> US rules don't apply outside the US.

First, that's not what the US claims itself (and legal claims or claims
of right is usually only tied to militart and economic power). Second,
please read the current discussion on nettime about the Hague Treaty that
is *currently* being negotiated by 50 nations in The Hague.

A quote from: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html

	The treaty is called the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and
	Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, and is being
	negotiated under the little known Hague Conference on Private
	International Law. The treaty is complex and far reaching,
	but is effectively unknown to the general public. The general
	framework for the convention is as follows.

       1.Countries which sign the convention agree to follow a set of
       rules regarding jurisdiction for cross-border litigation. Nearly
       all civil and commercial litigation is included.

       2.So long as these jurisdiction rules are followed, every country
       agrees to enforce nearly all of the member country judgments
       and injunctive orders, subject only to a narrow exception for
       judgments that are "manifestly incompatible with public policy,"
       or to specific treaty exceptions, such as the one for certain
       antitrust claims.

       3.A judgment in one country is enforced in all Hague convention
       member countries, even if the country has no connection to a
       particular dispute.

       4.There are no requirements to harmonize national laws on any
       topic, except for jurisdiction rules, and save the narrow Article
       28(f) public policy exception, there are no restrictions on the
       types of national laws that to be enforced.

       5.All "business to business" choice of forum contracts are enforced
       under the convention. This is true even for non-negotiated
       mass-market contracts. Under the most recent drafts of the
       convention, many consumer transactions, such as the purchase of a
       work related airline ticket from a web site, the sale of software
       to a school or the sale of a book to a library, is defined as
       a business to business transaction, which means that vendors of
       goods or services or publishers can eliminate the right to sue
       or be sued in the country where a person lives.


Yes, this means that the Internet may soon be reduced to the common denomitor
of all countries involved. If you make a pro Christianity remark as Dutch
citizen, and I can read that posting in the Saudies, I can sue you there, and
the NL will have to enforce the Saudien court. Or if you have a software
patent in the US, you can enforce it in Europe through US courts, even though
Europe doesn't allow software patents.

A similar law is already in place within Europe (that one member's ruling cannot
be brought to court in another country, and countries help each other to enforce
all rules done in member countries) though ofcourse European countries are much
more in league which each other as 50 nations around the world.

For a thorough discussion of the implications of this treaty, have a look at the
nettime lists, eg:

http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/200106/msg00080.html

Paul
-- 
"Ik vind het zo moeilijk om mijn mening de vrije loop te geven in de
 wetenschap dat het morgen wellicht op de voorpagina van de Telegraaf
 staat."

  --- Sabri Berisha, Nationaal Aftap Overleg mailing list (nao-l)