Owen,
On Aug 25, 2010, at 9:41 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
I think this provision is important and is not intended to prevent
the legitimate creation of a Middle East RIR or any other RIR
through the approved process or in any way disadvantage such
an RIR, but, to prevent some external authority from receiving
anything by simply declaring themselves to be an RIR by
some form of legal fiat.
If an "external authority" declares themselves to be an IR (leaving off the first "R" since it is doubtful it would be "regional") by legal fiat, then presumably they'd use that same legal fiat to delegate to themselves a couple of unused /8s. After all, declaring themselves an IR already violates existing global policies and would threaten the stability of the existing address allocation regime. Going the extra step and saying "oh, and these /8s are ours so don't try to allocate from them" would seem a minor matter.
However, I'd think these sorts of hypotheticals are ... of questionable value given the extremely short window of opportunity.
I suspect it much more likely that if a new IR were to establish itself, it would probably have no interest in new IPv4 allocations, instead focusing on IPv6 for political reasons (see the ITU's "CIR" efforts) and/or establishing themselves as a titles registry to facilitate buying/selling of unencumbered IPv4 space.
To be honest, discussing the creation of new RIRs or even devising new and interesting ways of allocating the bitter dregs of unused IPv4 space at this point in time strikes me as equivalent to determining what sort of new and interesting geometric shapes can be formed with the deck chairs on the Titanic. But that's probably just me...
Regards,
-drc