RE: [Nro-comments] Comments of the ASO AC on NRO documents

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

Ray:

On behalf of the Address Council I'd like to thank you for the prompt
response to the Address Council.  With the short timeframes in place, I am
going to ask Address Council members who have further comments or questions
to direct those to nro-comments.

Mark

Mark McFadden
North American Representative - ICANN ASO Address Council
aso.ac@mcfaddencentral.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Plzak [mailto:plzak@arin.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 11:30 AM
To: aso.ac@mcfaddencentral.com; nro-comments@apnic.net
Cc: ac-coord@aso.icann.org; raul@lacnic.net; axel.pawlik@ripe.net;
pwilson@apnic.net
Subject: RE: [Nro-comments] Comments of the ASO AC on NRO documents

Mark,

Thank you passing on the comments from the ASO AC.  Below by means of
annotation are the clarifications that the ASO AC has requested.

Ray Plzak
ARIN Board Member


>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.


The Proposed Open letter to ICANN
http://www.apnic.net/docs/drafts/draft-nro-proposal-20030923.html
provides a summary of the background to this proposal, and we note that this
is one more step in a process of negotiation with ICANN that has extended
over the past 18 months. During this process the RIRs have published their
responses to ICANN and have reported to the regional open policy fora on an
on-going basis with respect to the status and current issues at each stage,
and solicit comments during this process.

This particular step has elected to use a public announcement and a 30 day
comment period to gather input from the community of these proposals. It is
noted that the documents have been broadly circulated and considered, and
there have been a number of thoughtful comments submitted, as well as
expressions of support. The comments have resulted in further explanatory
documentation in the form of an FAQ
(http://www.apnic.net/info/faq/nro-faq.html), as  well as further
clarification on aspects of the NRO transition. Such consideration and
comment has been highly valued.


>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.

The relevant section of the proposed MoU that describes the procedures
of the
NRO Executive Council is in Section 6 (a) of the draft NRO MoU. It
states that:

     The NRO Executive Council shall, by unanimous approval of its
members,
     develop procedures for conducting business in support of their 
responsibilities
     and submit these procedures to the Boards of all RIRs to obtain
their 
approval

The NRO is a means of providing organizational structure to the RIRs
operating
on joint activities, and as such the NRO is accountable to the RIRs. It
was 
felt that
the Executive Council of the NRO is therefore accountable to the RIRs
and
its procedures for conducting its business must be approved by the
Boards
of the RIRs .

The NRO Number Council is slightly different in that its composition and
responsibilities extend to a broader community of interest in address
policies
than the RIRs per se. In this case it was considered that the Number
Council
develop procedures in a manner that does admit input from the broader
community of interest.


>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.


In drafting the MoU the desire was to describe in general terms the
roles
and responsibilities of this body, as well as describing its
composition. It
was not intended to document all of the procedures and processes that
would
be used by this body to conduct its business. As noted in the previous 
response,
it was felt that this activity would be more appropriately be undertaken
by the
Number Council and Executive Council once they are formed, and use a
process of third party review and ratification to adopt the processes.

It is certainly the case, and entirely consistent with the RIR structure
of 
bottom-up
policy development that proposed global policies that are ultimately 
ratified by
the NRO Executive Council have been reviewed and endorsed
by all of the regional open policy fora and reviewed and recommended for
adoption by the NRO Number Council as a necessary precondition. We are
of 
the view
that a description of the global policy development process that
includes this
particular consideration falls within the scope of procedures and
processes
to be defined by the NRO Number Council.

The second suggestion also needs to be considered in context.  As noted
in
the cover note,  the proposed NRO MoU is "structured in such a way that
it is
capable of providing continuity of coordination of number resource 
administrative
functions if so required in the event of failure of ICANN.". For this 
reason the
NRO MoU is drafted in a manner that allows the NRO to operate in a
'standalone"
mode in such an eventuality. Adding an explicit reference to ICANN in
the 
NRO MoU
would compromise the ability of this document to act as a fallback
position
in such an eventuality.




>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.


As noted in this section, "The Advisory Appeals Panel decision is
intended to
serve as a persuasive advisory opinion."

IN the case of an appeal relating to the actions of an RIR, it is noted 
that the
RIRs are each independent entities and are ultimately accountable to
their
membership, the relevant laws and  regulations within the regions where
they
operate and in a more general mode, to the Internet community in their
domain
of operation. It is not the intent to create in  the NRO a mechanisms
where the
legitimate autonomy of an RIR is compromised. For this reason the
appeals
process in formulated in the mode of an advisory opinion, and in the
case 
where
thjis relates to the actions of an RIR, it then falls within the sphere
of 
responsibility
of the RIR to consider this advice and take remedial action as the RIR
may
determine to be apporpriate according to the RIR's own defined
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.


This is perhaps again an issue of the distinction between a general
agreement
and definition of process and procedure. It was felt that drafting this
general
form of agreement with ICANN would take the form of a general
description
of respective roles and responsibilities, including more specific
documentation
of procedure in those cases where both parties felt that it was an 
essential part of the
agreement. For this reason the procedures relating to global policy
development
and a reference to an existing document on the topic of the
establishment 
of new Regional
Internet Registries has been included in this proposed agreement.

It is certainly the intent that the provision of advice to ICANN  on
number 
resource
allocation policy is an activity that reinforces the positive working 
relationship of
all the entities involved, and any subsequent documentation of procedure
in 
this
area should take this into acocunt.

>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.


We appreciate the constructive comments from the Addres Council and the
assessment that this proposal represents a  long-lasting and positive
contribution to the community