I hereby declare Quebec free.
You do that. Nobody wants Quebec.
Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
41–50 of 69 posts
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#42It's interesting to read this post as a "western world citizen" whose country's boundaries rarely (if never) change (well, I don't think a big part of HN ever heard of its country boundaries ever changed in his lifetime). It felt eye-opening when I stumbled on this issue some years ago. We were building a Google Maps app for a branch of the UN and my boss told me we needed to hide the map's boundaries and use the one…
We've already had our first Google Maps "war". http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/the-first-go...
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#43I don't think companies should take a stance on political issues, which is what Google is doing here. Would actually prefer companies have totally no influence on politics at all, but as we all know, that would be an utopia.
> I don't think companies should take a stance on political issues, which is what Google is doing here. Every possible choice of wording for anything having to do with the area of land bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt involves taking a stance on a contentious political issue. I don't think corporations (or anyone else) should avoid making such choices because they inherently require…
Even those bordering countries/areas are unclear. cf Golan Heights (which resulted in Facebook being banned by the Syrian government); and the dispute between Lebanon and Israel on maritime borders.
Talk about messy...
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Under International Law it is the Montevideo Convention, under which the four criteria for statehood are defined: The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo_Convention ) However, I like your phrase…
Reality is not as straightforward as the Convention, which is pretty loose anyway (who defines that territory, government and capacity?). There are in fact two very different schools of thought on what creates statehood: http://www.lawteacher.net/constitutional-law/essays/declarat...
Grant argues that current projects for the elaboration of >"Montevideo Plus" criteria for statehood are -- while legitimately attempting to infuse statehood with considerations that better reflect changing normative standards
Basically it is the convention plus the state be democratic - but this has already proven to be a failure in international law as a result of Afganistan democratically electing the Taliban and Palestine electing Hamas. So to my original reply I stand firm that the convention applies but more practically it is "standing in the international community" that is the norm of current international law (as of yet to be codified) and you can be sure it is not democracy as your referenced article suggests.
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#45If it was this easy, google should take a survey in asia and redraw the map of every country there. A map of India with Line of Control with Kashmir and Line of Actual control with China as real borders should permanently resolve the issues between three nuclear armed nations.
There is more. The island between Japan and China. The island between Russia and Japan. Also for Sri Lanka create a map of Tamil nation with Jaffna as capital. And Taiwan..
Wish it was so easy...
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#46This issue came up a few times before in discussion on Hacker News. A little known fact is that "facts on the ground," even entries in reference books or labeling on maps, can be taken in international law to indicate acquiescence to territorial claims by other countries (or to indicate assertion of hostile claims by the country in which the reference books or maps are published). This is why some countries with exte…
Here's something few people seem to be aware of - Taiwan agrees it is part of China (aka 'One China' [1]).
While we often hear about the government in Beijing claiming the island as the sovereign territory of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), we don't hear much about the claims made by the government in Taipei that the mainland is the sovereign territory of the Republic of China (ROC).
Although both sides dispute who is the sole legitimate government of a single China, they both agree that territorially it includes the island of Taiwan. Meanwhile, a recent poll suggests that for people on the ground, opinion is divided.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy
[2] http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/04/30/2...
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reality is not as straightforward as the Convention, which is pretty loose anyway (who defines that territory, government and capacity?). There are in fact two very different schools of thought on what creates statehood: http://www.lawteacher.net/constitutional-law/essays/declarat...
Grant argues that current projects for the elaboration of >"Montevideo Plus" criteria for statehood are -- while legitimately attempting to infuse statehood with considerations that better reflect changing normative standards Basically it is the convention plus the state be democratic - but this has already proven to be a failure in international law as a result of Afganistan democratically electing the Taliban and P…
> proven to be a failure in international law as a result of Afganistan democratically electing the Taliban and Palestine electing Hamas
I'm not trying to condone either government, but why is this a failure? If (I'm assuming this for the argument's sake) they were really elected democratically who are we in other countries to say that's wrong? Wouldn't that be the same as giving merit to a (hypothetical) North Korea declarations that the US has no legitimate statehood for whatever reason?
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#48If it was this easy, google should take a survey in asia and redraw the map of every country there. A map of India with Line of Control with Kashmir and Line of Actual control with China as real borders should permanently resolve the issues between three nuclear armed nations. There is more. The island between Japan and China. The island between Russia and Japan. Also for Sri Lanka create a map of Tamil nation with J…
Hell, that would even solve the disputes between the USA and Canada [1].
1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Canad...
Edit: Just adding some context, the disputes mostly deal with islands and areas of the sea. Canada, other 163 countries, and the European Union join the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; but the USA does not.
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann, ISO and other international organisations." Maybe corporations will start to recognize Quebec as free when the UN, ICANN, ISO, and a handful of other apolitical organizations do too, as is the case with the officially recognized state of Palestine.
> Maybe corporations will start to recognize Quebec as free when the UN, ICANN, ISO, and a handful of other apolitical organizations do too UN, ICANN, and ISO aren't apolitical organizations.
No organization is apolitical.
Re: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could Google avoid taking a stance? Either they call it one thing or the other. Or they could call every contested bit of land Narnia but then no one would be happy with them.
I agree. The domain name is already in political territory. Maybe if domain names were by language instead of location...
That would be nowhere easier.
Many languages have different names across populations. And people strongly identify to a specific nomenclature.
Also, many people speak multiple languages, languages that cross disputed borders, and languages spoken only by populations that want independence from the current states where they're located (e.g. Basque).