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ICANN Address Supporting Organization ASO Address Council To: Regional Registries CEO NRO-comment mailing list From: ASO Address Council RE: Comments and concerns regarding the NRO formation proposal documents On October 15th the ASO Address Council met to discuss the documents published by the RIRs in September. The Address Council recognizes and appreciates the hard work and thoughtful attention to detail that is present in all three documents (letter to the ICANN Board, the proposed NRO formation document, and the draft MoU on the ASO and AC). In our teleconference we focused on the proposal for a Number Resource Organization. We hope our comments and suggestions prove useful to you as you create a final letter and plan for implementing the Number Resource Organization. PUBLIC INPUT TO THE PROPOSAL While the process ending up in this concrete proposal has been going on for a long time, and has been open to comments and discussion, the concrete proposal describing the NRO could benefit from discussion at the upcoming RIR meetings. While formally the creation of the NRO may be within the jurisdiction if the RIR boards the RIR tradition has previously been to consult its membership on such important changes. A strong bottom up support for the proposal would strengthen the legitimacy of the proposal. TRANSPARENCY IN THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL We believe that those drafting the NRO documents paid careful attention to the need for open and transparent processes in NRO activities. As an example, the NRO Number Council is specifically required to ". . . develop procedures in an accessible, open, transparent and documented manner for conducting business in support of their responsibilities . . ." The Address Council believes this is an essential feature of fair process for all involved in the addressing and numbering community. We are unable to find a similar requirement for the NRO Executive Council. We believe that there should be a statement on openness and transparency regarding the Executive Council. The text in section six of the NRO formation document should be amended to clarify this point. This would emphasis the importance of openness and transparency at all levels in the organization. RATIFICATION AND REJECTION OF POLICY The Address Council notes that in section 6a) of the proposed NRO agreement, it states that the NRO Executive Council can ratify or reject global IP number policies. We spent a substantial amount of time attempting to understand when and how the Executive Council would exercise this authority. During this discussion it was suggested that it may help if section is 6a) clarified to state that the policies ratified by the NRO Executive Council would be based on member decisions in each RIR region. It is also recommended that a statement is added to this section of the agreement which states that policies must be developed following bottom-up, open and transparent processes stated as in the, to-be-negotiated, MoU with ICANN. APPEALS ADVISORY PROCESS The Address Council believes that the authority of the Appeals Panel is not clear. If advice has been given by the NRO Advisory Appeals Panel, what (if any) obligations are upon the RIRs to act according to that advice? The Address Council would like language in section 9) of the NRO formation document that makes clear what obligations - if there are any - the RIRs are under in the unlikely event that an Advisory Appeal Panel finds that an RIR, NRO or NRO suborganization fails to follow its own documented processes. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NRO NC AND ICANN In the proposed MoU between the NRO and ICANN, within section 3) and in bullet point 4, there is a statement about the responsibility of the future Address Council: "providing advice to the Board of ICANN on number resource allocation policy, in conjunction with the RIRs" Members of the Address Council suggest that the meaning of the language "in conjunction with the RIRs" is clarified to highlight the positive working relationship of all the entities involved. SUMMARY The Address Council appreciates the hard work of the many people that contributed to the published draft of these documents. The establishment of the NRO creates a single point of contact for ICANN and a mechanism to formalize the coordination of global IP number resources. We believe that these will be long-lasting and positive contributions to the community.
Attachment:
ICANN ASO AC - Statement on NRO Formation - Final.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document