US Jurisprudence is built upon a suspicion of strong central governments. This is in part inherited from a suspicion of a strong central British king. The original colonies and states were just that, decentralized jurisdictions that could barely sit in the same room and write up a constitution. When at last the constitution was drafted and ratified, this suspicion of central governments was maintained. In its place was the idea of distributed legal development. There would be multiple state authorities each with their own law. This law was common law as opposed to a central code. The law evolved on a test case basis. The presumption was, among other things, that the central government could not know how to apply general legal concepts in all of the different particulars. Instead, the particular applications would be worked out on an evolutionary basis through trials. Likewise, federal law was divided into circuits. One circuit, just like the states, is not bound by the law of another circuit. The 5th Circuit can look at the same issue as the 9th Circuit, and come out differently. This created a market place of ideas, where different notions of how the law should be applied could be worked out. At the federal level, the circuit courts would hammer out difficult legal issues, exploring different implications, until the issue became fully ripe with a good legal foundation. At this point, the Supreme Court would grant cert, take the appeal, and resolve the issue. Once the Supremes did this, the law would be uniform across the land. The key is that unified law across jurisdictions did not traditionally occur in US jurisprudence until a lot of good aggetation had taken place. The issue would be fully explored. Different expiremental solutions would be tried. Finally resolution would take place and there would be a national law. Now in the modern age we seek to do the opposite. We see trans jurisdiction unified law without the advantage of the market place of ideas, experimentation, and exploration. Highly centralized governments removed from the concerns of the people seek to create sweeping laws that apply in unanticipated circumstances. This is a difficult analysis. Does the need for expeditious unified global laws outweigh the advantage of working out legal solutions in competitive jurisdictions. Do we need fast unified laws or do we need slower but more appropriate laws worked out through evolution? 2 cents. ~B --- Alexandre Dulaunoy <adulau-ietf@conostix.com> wrote: > > Yes, you are right. > > My question was regarding the purpose of that > (...legal framework...) in a RFC. > > When we see the damage of the additional article in > the WIPO (for example > the article 10/11 in the copyright article)... > > That generate the DMCA in US and the EUCD in Europe. > > > So global legal framework are quite dangerous in a > RFC. > > IMVHO. > > adulau > > ===== | Washington Internet Project | | www.cybertelecom.org | | cannon(a)cybertelecom.org | __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com