Links to official documents (Specification 5)

Many of us have read Specification 5 of the Applicant Guidebook (4 June 2012) regarding reserved names at the second level in gTLD registries. Basically: which domain names should be reserved, and not allowed to be registered.

After searching in the Applicant Guidebook annexes and the entire new gTLD web site, I remember finding the documents on the United Nations' web site...after 20+ minutes searching. The two documents I am refering to*:

1. The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Technical Reference Manual for the Standardization of Geographical Names, Part III Names of Countries of the World;
2. The list of United Nations member states in 6 official United Nations languages prepared by the Working Group on Country Names of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names.

I visited the web site yesterday to check the documents again and I found a draft dated 2006. I didn't want to spend 20 more minutes trying to locate the documents again so I sent an email and received a very fast and kind answer which I want to share with you:

The first document you list is only available for purchase and is not current.  If you want to purchase it, here’s the link:

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/pubs/gesgrid.asp?ID=377

The second set of information is available in the following document, which is current as of May 2012:

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/10th-uncsgn-docs/econf/E_CONF.101_25_UNGEGN%20WG%20Country%20Names%20Document.pdf

Even if most back-end registry providers will take care of these lists for their clients applicants, I suggest to double check if they have the latest documents.


* These are just 2 of the documents concerning reserved names. For the rest of them, I suggest to read Specification 5 again (page 46 of the Registry agreement in the Applicant Guidebook).