ICANN puts .islam and other gTLD bids in limbo

Or should that be Barzakh?
Rather than making the tricky decision on whether to approve .islam and .halal new gTLD applications, ICANN seems to have place both bids into permanent limbo.
It’s also put off calls on applications for .spa, .amazon, .wine and .vin, due to objections from the Governmental Advisory Committee.
On .islam and .halal, ICANN chair Steve Crocker wrote to Turkish applicant Asia Green IT System to say that the New gTLD Program Committee will not address the bids until AGIT has worked out its differences with the Organization for Islamic Cooperation.
He noted that AGIT has expressed a willingness in the past to work with the OIC, but that the OIC has formally decided to object to the two applications. Crocker wrote:

There seems to be a conflict between the commitments made in your letters and the concerns raised in letters to ICANN urging ICANN not to delegate the strings. Given these circumstances, the NGPC will not address the applications further until such time as the noted conflicts have been resolved.

This is not a formal rejection of the applications, but ICANN seems to have placed them in a limbo that will only be resolved when AGIT withdraws from the program or secures OIC support.
There’s also delaying treatment for .wine and .vin, which have become the subject of a raging row between Europe on the one hand and the US, Canada and Australia on the other.
Europe wants these two wine-related gTLDs to be subject to strict rules on who can register domains containing geographic indicators, such as “Champagne”. The others don’t.
ICANN in response has commissioned a third-party study on GIs, which it expects to be able to consider at its Singapore public meeting next month. Again, a decision has been avoided.
The two applicants for .spa don’t have any closure either.
Spa is the name of a town in Belgium, whereas the two applicants — Donuts and Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council — intend to use the string in its English dictionary sense.
There was a bit of a scandal during the Buenos Aires meeting last November when it was suggested that Belgium was using its position on the GAC to shake down the applicants for money.
Belgium denied this, saying the city of Spa didn’t stand to gain financially from the deals that it was trying to make with applicants. Some money would go to “the community served by .spa”, Belgium said, without elaboration.
ICANN has now decided to put .spa on hold, but wants to know more about these talks:

ICANN will not enter into registry agreements with applicants for the identified string at this time. The NGPC notes concern about concluding the discussions with the applicants and will request the GAC to (1) provide a timeline for final consideration of the string, and (2) identify the “interested parties” noted in the GAC advice.

Finally, ICANN has yet again delayed making a call on Amazon’s application for .amazon — until at least Singapore — out of an abundance of legal caution.
The GAC recommended that ICANN should reject .amazon because a few Latin American states claim ownership of the string due to it being the same as the Amazon region they share.
Amazon and others claim that it would be in violation of international law that prevents governments interfering with the use of trademarks for the GAC to block .amazon.
ICANN’s NGPC said:

ICANN has commissioned an independent, third-party expert to provide additional analysis on the specific issues of application of law at issue, which may focus on legal norms or treaty conventions relied on by Amazon or governments. The analysis is expected to be completed in time for the ICANN Singapore meeting so that the NGPC can consider it in Singapore.

In my view, the .amazon issue is the one most likely to bring a lawsuit to ICANN’s doorstep, so the organization clearly wants to get its legal position straight before making a call one way or the other.
All these decisions were made on Wednesday. You can read the NGPC’s resolution here and the important details here.

Europe continues to object to .wine gTLD

The European Union is continuing to fight the proposed .wine and .vin gTLDs, even after ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee formally withdrew its advice on the applications.
Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission, wrote to ICANN on Thursday to say that its “firm position” is:

under no circumstance can we agree having .wine and .vin and on the internet, without sufficient safeguards which efficiently protect the rights and interest of both GI [Geographic Indicator] right holders and consumers and wine and wine products

The EC believes that .wine and .vin should have special second-level protections for wine GIs — geographic indicators such as Champagne, named after the region in which it is produced.
It’s a view that has been put forward by many associations of wine producers in the EU and US for over a year. ICANN is also in receipt of letters disagreeing with the GAC from other wine producers.
The law internationally, and even in the EU, appears to be patchy on whether and how GIs are protected. They don’t generally enjoy the same uniformity of protection as trademarks.
The GAC considered the two strings in April at the Beijing meeting but failed to come to a consensus.
It wound up asking ICANN for more time and, after failing to reach agreement again in Durban this July, finally concluded last week that it was unable to find a consensus on advice.
That potentially laid the path clear for the four applications for the two strings to continue to contention resolution, contracting and eventual delegation.
However, the GAC’s all-clear arrived too late for the ICANN New gTLD Program Committee to formally consider it at its meeting last week.
According to the Kroes letter, the European Commission’s view is:

there has not been any consensus decision overruling the advice given in Beijing. We are therefore of the firm opinion that the advice provided at the GAC April meeting stands as long as there is no new consensus on the matter.

The Beijing advice, which was explicitly intended to give the GAC more time to deliberate, said that ICANN should not proceed beyond Initial Evaluation with .wine or .vin.
Kroes’ logic may or may not be consistent with the letter of the Beijing communique, but certainly not its spirit. That’s becoming an increasingly common problem with GAC advice.
It seems unlikely, however, that ICANN would put the views of one single government ahead of what the GAC as a whole has submitted as formal advice.
Her letter does not seem to have been published by ICANN yet, but you can read it in PDF format here.