[Nro-comments] NRO Comment: Executive Council Responsibilities

["Mark McFadden" <aso.ac@mcfaddencentral.com>]

The following opinion is neither that of my employer or that of the Address
Council, of which I am a member.

Section 6.a of the NRO document lays out the responsibilities of the
Executive Council of the NRO.  A particularly troubling clause in these
responsibilities is the statement: "The NRO Executive Council shall ratify
or reject proposed global IP number resource policies."

This statement is far too broad.  First, it places the responsibility for
rejecting or ratifying global IP resource policies in the hands of four
people (presumably, but not necessarily, the four RIR CEOs).  This violates
the basic spirit of all the RIRs transparent, bottom-up policy development
processes.  In addition, the proposed wording fails to provide a link to the
appeals process where an aggrieved party may ask if the Executive Council's
own policies were followed.

The process fails to provide a transparent and open procedure for making the
decision and also fails to express the role of the Numbers Council.

This clause, in 6.a. of the proposed NRO formation document needs to be
changed to reflect the bottom-up, transparent and responsible nature of
global address policy formation.

An example of changing that language to reflect the spirit and tradition of
bottom up policy formation would be:

"The NRO Executive Council may, after a documented and open process of
consultation with RIR communities and the NRO Number Council, elect to
ratify proposed global IP number resource policy.  The Number Council is
specifically required, for any such proposed policy, to advise the Executive
Council on the merits of the policy and whether or not document policy
formation processes were followed in advancing the policy. Upon
ratification, any party may ask the  Advisory Appeals Panel to rule on
whether or not documented process was followed in crafting the proposed
global policy.  If the Advisory Appeals Panel finds that the documented
process was not followed, the ratified policy does not take effect."

Mark McFadden
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee