His basic point is spot on: one of the ugliest aspects of ICANN's abuse of its redelegation power is that it blackmails the new delegate into signing ICANN's "pay us and obey us" contracts.

And they do, because they don't have much choice.

As for the rest [of the redelegated ccTLDs], with the singular exception of Canada (which in Internet terms maintains the strange relationship with the US that the two countries do), every one has done something extraordinary - signed a contractual agreement with ICANN, written by ICANN, in which the country recognises ICANN as the ultimate authority in domain name issues.

I strongly suspect CIRA is in no more of a rush to sign such a contract than Britain, France, Germany, et al. Note that with the exception of Australia (for which Paul Twomey is being handsomely repaid), to their credit most of the first world (which is largely to say most of the most wired countries) have so far resisted ICANN's extortion attempts. I don't know of any particular strange relationship we share with the US other than sharing the world's largest border with them through an accident of birth. -g