Taiwan failed in a legal bid to require the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to revise its reference to the country as “Taiwan, Province of China” after the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland on Thursday refused to entertain the lawsuit filed by Taipei in July 2007, an official said.
“Although we have exhausted all available judicial procedures in this case, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue its efforts to have the international community refer to Taiwan by its official title rather than the designation used by the ISO,” Department of Treaty and Legal Affairs director-general Yang Kuo-tung (楊國棟) said.
Yang said the rationale behind the court decision — made in a three-to-two vote — that a civil tribunal had no authority over a case with political implications — was “unacceptable.”
“The case was civil in nature, without any political implications attached. That the ISO inappropriately changed our name was an infringement on our rights and we demanded it make a correction. The court should not have dealt with the case based on political considerations,” Yang said.
The Geneva-based ISO, an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations, has used the designation for Taiwan since 1998 when it published the ISO 3166 country codes list.
Taiwan, in the name of the government, filed the lawsuit with the Geneva First Instance Court on July 20, 2007, against the ISO, requesting it change the country’s name to “Republic of China (Taiwan)” after the ISO failed to respond positively to repeated requests over the naming issue.
The ISO argued that the designation it used for Taiwan was in line with UN practices.
It was the first time Taiwan resorted to legal action over the issue of the country’s designation in a major international organization.
The ISO, which did not acknowledge Taiwan’s legal standing in bringing the lawsuit, won an appeal in March last year, when a state court overrode a verdict by the Geneva First Instance Court that favored Taiwan over the ISO regarding its legal eligibility to be a plaintiff, Yang said.
Dissatisfied with the second instance verdict, the government appealed to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland in May last year, requesting that the court ensure that Taiwan was legally eligible to file the lawsuit.
The court of second instance ruled in favor of the ISO, saying that granting rights to institute legal proceedings to Taiwan was tantamount to diplomatic recognition, which was not in line with the Swiss government’s policy, Yang said.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS