Professor of international economic and European Law, Vesalius College,

Efficient and equitable dispute resolution is key to avoiding systemic disturbance in the use and valorization of top level domain names (TLDs). Such dispute resolution is also important given the increasing number of clashes between TLD providers and managers and between trademark owners and generic (gTLD)-related registrants. ICANN policies/rules form the basis of gTLD-related second level domain (SLD) dispute settlement platforms. However, some gTLD-related disputes at SLD and most country (cc)TLD-related disputes still end up in national courts. Dispute resolution, because of the nature of TLD rights, still goes often in favor of trademark owners. The nature of the domain name right – property or contractual- still clouds efficient dispute resolution. This paper reviews the state of the situation at governance level and at gTLD-related dispute resolution level with a view to formulate some dispute resolution policy suggestions for parties in the DNS