LCC12 — The primary URI for a country should be based on its ISO code

with the name-based URI as an alternative using sameAs.
The name-based URIs are unstable (we have had several countries changing name but not ISO code) and the algorithm (e.g. for replacing spaces and punctuation) makes them unpredictable. Most external datasets use the code not the name, requiring an expensive lookup to create a link using the name-based URI.

Defer to next major version

Despite the fact that use of sameAs should reduce the impact of churn based on the ISO names for countries, this is considered too large a change to make at this minor version 1.2 release/revision.

It is also controversial with many users, including some FIBO users, that believe the country-based URI is more appropriate for a semantic standard that is used by business analysts.