[Nro-comments] FW: NRO Comment: EC Responsibilities

["Mark McFadden" <mcf@uwm.edu>]

In a response to JPNIC comments Geoff Huston writes:

> - The model of NRO EC, a body constituting of the RIR representatives 
> approving the global policy seems to have less checks and balances 
> than the current structure. Wouldn't this imply the RIRs approving its 
> own policy?


As noted by Frode Greisen of the Board of the RIPE NCC, in a response to
comments from Sabine Jaume:
(http://www.apnic.net/nro-comments/archive/2003/10/msg00009.html)

"It is only in the stand-alond scenario after and ICANN failure that the
Executive council would in reality ratify or reject. The sense of the
document is that the Executive council would then act in the role of the
ICANN board as far as address policy ratification is concerned and would
only base its decision on whether due processes were followed or not. In
order to avoid duplication, all the relevant procedures defined in the ASO
MoU and its attachment are not also spelled out in the NRO document.

In the case of rejection, any dissatisfied party could resort to the appeals
process."

As I have noted in a previous positing the appeals process DOES NOT provide
checks and balances because it is not binding on any party in the NRO
document.  JPNIC's question has not been answered yet.  Still, I think this
is easily fixed and tried to supply language that could be used to solve the
problem in a separate comment.

The suggestion that the Executive council would not reject or approve policy
unless there was an ICANN failure is not in the NRO formation document and
is an issue that has been raised in at least three of the four RIR regions.
Clearly there is something wrong here.  This needs to be spelled out more
explicitly so that it does not appear that the EC could, on its own at any
time, reject the legitimate results of bottom up global policy formation
(regardless of the existence of an external organization like ICANN).

Mark McFadden
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee