[Nro-comments] A Concern on the Process Used to Consider the NRO documents

["Mark McFadden" <ireland@mailbag.com>]

The following concern is mine alone and does not reflect the opinion of my
employer or of the Address Council, of which I am a member.

I've read the recently circulated proposals of the RIR Boards.  I'm happy to
say that I support many of the initiatives that the RIR boards are
proposing.  In addition, I fully agree with, and stand behind the concerns
and issues posted by the ASO Address Council.

I think that the NRO proposal has wide-ranging, long-lasting impacts on the
technical coordination, planning and administration of addressing and
numbering policy.  I've found it difficult to find anyone would disagree
with that assertion. 

One of the things that I wonder is this: why are the customary and usual
mechanisms for policy discussions not being used in this case?  In
particular, why aren't the bottom-up policy development processes in the
four RIRs being used to discuss such a far-reaching proposal?  Instead, no
public, face-to-face meeting will be held where these matters are discussed
before the RIR boards meet to discuss amongst themselves whether to sign the
proposed documents.

I think this is wrong.

At a minimum I believe that the RIRs are obligated to bring these documents
to their already established policy development forums.  The impact of these
proposals have potentially far-reaching consequences for the members and
participants in every registry.  If the RIR boards feel that bottom-up
policy development is a reality then they will have no issue with using
their well-documented, already established mechanisms for creating consensus
addressing policy.

In addition, since the proposal dramatically change the relationship between
ICANN and the RIRs, the RIR CEOs should sponsor a series of open discussions
at ICANN for that community to provide input and guidance.  I would think
that these discussions would center upon the proposed MoU.



Mark

Mark McFadden
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee