Three Questions for the EOS Community Constitution
1. Can you provide a stance or clarification on how criminal proceedings and ADR can be combined to fit under WIPO(?)
Criminal cases are handled by the police, prosecution, and judges. It is the state against the criminal. That is an untouchable process. No agreement can in any way influence that system. So criminal proceedings will continue whatever one writes down in an agreement. Therefore criminal proceedings cannot be dealt with in the ECC.
A victim of a crime can sue the criminal, however. To claim damages or reclaim stolen goods. This will be the victim against the criminal. One civilian against the other. Those are civil proceedings. Though the case is against a criminal the case is not criminal but civil: the claimant is not the State but the victim. Within the ECC those civil cases are being dealt with, through the Oath protocol. And if the award is denied, the claimant may appeal with Wipo.
These are the default settings, users or dApps can change the ADR providers as part of their agreement.
2. Would it be possible to include some kind of permission structure proposal in the ECC?
Of course. We should look at the ECC as a functional design. Anything can be and hopefully will be automated by including a clear permission structure. All rules of the ECC that can be written into code, should be written into the code to unload as much of the manual work as possible.
The ECC allows now for the parties ADR provider and in the future for all kinds of other ADR systems that the community shall deem fit. It is extremely flexible. It allows too for insurance initiatives in combination with specific ADR to deal with claims. Etc. etc.
3. Why is it necessary that ADR is included at a protocol level and not at a smart contract level?
The ECC is a contract. As is the EUA. Without ADR normal conflict rules apply depending on your jurisdiction. Also on the protocol level. The normal conflict rules will lead to high costs and legal uncertainty. The uncertainty that is at the core of our blockchain: the protocol level. Incidents at that level may jeopardize the EOS mainnet. It is extremely important to allow for a robust ADR mechanism at that level.
To give one example: if my keys are stolen because I made a stupid mistake I will address the BPs since it is in their power to make me whole again. If they refuse I go to court if the stakes are high enough. All BPs run the risk to end up in endless legal battles. And I, as an end user, will have to commence a great legal fight. The ECC prevents that. Courts are being sidestepped by the ADR. An ADR that introduces predictability. The ECC protects the end user but also keeps the courts out. This is one reason why it is at the protocol level. All sister chains recognize this and have ADR.
Then there may be issues between the BPs as well. Those need to be resolved. Also, that will happen on the protocol level.
As an add on:
If a BP would deny my kind request to restore my account, the BP may become liable. Because there is no good reason not to help me. Other than scalability which judges do not really care about or, rather, they would, rightly so, say that the lack of scalability is our problem. Then the BP is either liable pro rata or jointly and severally. The latter since there appears to be some concerted actions to refuse such reasonable requests. Judges don’t particularly like arrangements that deny their citizens ownership.
With the ECC there is no problem since there is ADR to deal with all that. Dan Larimer suggested the BPs be the arbitrator in these instances. Fine but please be careful: it takes skills to be a judge. And it is not scalable at all.
