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Draft proposal for a MOU-based ASO

• icann aso internet coordination news

ICANN Address Supporting Organization

1. Definition of the ASO.

a. Purpose.

The Address Supporting Organization (ASO) will be a consensus-based advisory body within the ICANN framework.

b. Components.

The ASO will establish an "Address Council" and host an annual open meeting (known as the "General Assembly" described below)

c. Creation through a Memorandum of Understanding.

Arrangements regarding the ASO are to be reflected in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among ICANN and the group of ICANN approved Regional IP address Registries (RIR). RIRs will be approved by ICANN according to a set of objective, published criteria. (see Appendix A) After ICANN has accepted a proposal for an ICANN ASO, including the RIR criteria, a meeting, open to all ICANN approved RIRs will be held to develop the MOU.
Additional RIRs may join in signing the MOU after the first MOU has been ratified by the existing RIRs and after they have been approved by ICANN.


2. The Address Council.

a. Members.

Each RIR signatory of the MOU will appoint two [2] individuals to the Address Council by means of their own choosing. No individual can serve on the Address Council and be on the staff of a RIR at the same time.

b. Term.


The term of Address Council members will be 2 years. Removal will be pursuant to
procedures established through the MOU. (Initial terms will be 1 and 2 years to provide initial conditions for staggered terms.)

c. Powers/Duties of the Address Council.

i Appointment of ICANN Directors.
The Address Council is responsible for the selection of three [3] Directors to the ICANN Board (By-laws, Art. V, Sec. 4(iii)). The initial directors would have terms of 1, 2 and 3 years (By-laws, Art. V, Sec. 9(d)
Ninety days prior to the General Assembly meeting ICANN and Address Council will conduct an open call for nominations for any potentially open ASO seats on the ICANN board. The deadline for this call for nominations will be no earlier than 60 days after the
call, and no later than the day prior to theforthcoming General Assembly meeting. The nominees generated by this call will be retained until the next General Assembly meeting, and will be included in the list of individuals that the Address Council will consider to fill any openings which develop in the ASO seats on the ICANN board. In addition, each RIR signatory to the MOU is entitled to nominate candidates by procedures of its own choosing.
ICANN will notify the Address Council when there are any open positions in the ASO seats on the ICANN board. The Address Council will then select the ASO appointees to the ICANN board from among the list of nominations generated by the open call and the nominees put forth by the RIR signatories by a means of its own choosing. ii Qualifications of ICANN Directors.
No more than 1 of the ASO-appointed Directors may come from the same geographic region. iii Role of ICANN Directors.
The ASO-appointed Directors will not represent the ASO on the Board, but will function as full Directors of ICANN. (By-laws, Art. V, Sec. 8) iv Advisory Role.
The Address Council will advise the Board of ICANN on matters referred to the Address Council by the ICANN Board. As per the ICANN By-laws, only matters relating to the specific responsibilities of the ASO will be so referred. This advice will be developed as
detailed below for other policies.

d. Address Policy Development.


The ICANN bylaws assign to the ASO the responsibility for the development of global policies relating to the following areas:
  • distribution and registration of Internet address space (currently IPv4 and IPv6);
  • distribution and registration of identifiers used in Internet inter-domain routing (currently BGP autonomous system numbers);and
  • that part of the DNS name space which is derived from the Internet address space and the inter-domain routing identifier (currently in-addr.arpa and ip6.int).
The ASO advises ICANN on the operation of the DNS root name servers with regard to the subset of the DNS name space mentioned above.

Specifically this responsibility is limited to the above and does not extend to the business practices or local policies of the RIRs except as needed to ensure that the RIRs meet the approved criteria for ICANN approved RIRs. The RIRs are responsible to their own members and in most cases this must be their prim responsibility

Normally, proposals for global policies within the area of the ASO's responsibility will be developed within the RIRs and forwarded to the Address Council for their consideration. In special circumstances the ICANN board can forward a request to develop a new global policy or to review an existing global policy within the area of the ASO's responsibility to the Address Council.

In all cases when the Address Council reviews proposals for new global policies or proposed modification to existing policies in this area it will first solicit the opinions of all of the RIR signatories of the MOU and of the public. The Address Council will weigh the results of these solicitations in its deliberations to determine if it will approve the proposal. At least two thirds of the members of the Address Council must support a proposal for the proposal to be accepted and forwarded to the ICANN board for their consideration.

In any case where the ICANN board has requested that the AddressCouncil develop a new policy within the area of the ASO's responsibility, the Address Council will forward that request to the RIR signatories of the MOU. The RIRs will then be given a reasonable time to propose policies to address the request from ICANN. Any resulting policy will be evaluated as described above. If a RIR decides, after reviewing the request, that the request is unreasonable, it can report that opinion to the Address Council. If the Address Council, after reviewing the responses, decides that the request is unreasonable, it can report that opinion to the ICANN board along with the reasons that the Address Council reached that conclusion.


3. Annual Open Meeting. (General Assembly)

a. Hosting an open meeting.


The Address Council will periodically host an open meeting ("General Assembly") for promoting discussion and receiving input regarding the work of the ASO. A General
Assembly meeting will be held once per year, and will permit open participation by all interested individuals.


This General Assembly will be held in conjunction with a major meeting of one of the RIRs that have signed the MOU, with an effort to hold no two [2] consecutive meetings in the same geographic region.

b. Selection of Address Council Members.


Ninety days prior to each General Assembly, ICANN and the Address Council shall make an open call for nominations to any potential vacancies in the Address Council. The results of this call will be forwarded to each RIR signatory to the MOU for their information.
Each RIR signatory to the ASO MOU will be entitled to select two [2] members of the Address Council by means of its own choosing. The terms of the appointees will be determined by the appointing RIR.


4. Open Proceedings and Documents.

a. Communications between ICANN and the ASO.


All communications between ICANN and the ASO will be made public on the ICANN/ASO web site.

b. ASO Proceedings.


All discussions of ASO business will be conducted on or reported on a publicly-archived mailing list accessible through the ICANN/ASO web site. The schedule for the ASO meetings will be posted 90 days in advance of the meeting date. The agenda for the Address Council and annual open meetings will be posted on the ICANN/ASO web site at least 30 days before the meetings. The minutes from all ASO meetings will be publicly posted on the ICANN/ASO web site within 30 days of the meeting.


5. Review of MOU.

The MOU signatories will periodically review the results and consequences of their cooperation under the MOU. When appropriate, the signatories will consider the need for improvements in the MOU and make suitable proposals for modifying and updating the arrangements and scope of the MOU.

6. Recognition.

ICANN will officially recognize the ASO described in this memo as the ASO under the ICANN By-laws Art. 6, Sec. 3

Appendix A - requirements for consideration as a ICANN-approved RIR

ICANN will develop requirements and policies for the approval of RIRs. This proposal assumes that the requirements will include at least:

1) That the proposed RIR has demonstrated the broad support of the Internet service providers
(ISPs) in its proposed region of coverage.

2) That the region of coverage of the proposed RIR meets the scale to be defined by ICANN considering the need to avoid global address space fragmentation.

3) That the proposed RIR's membership includes a significant percentage of the ISPs within the RIR's region of coverage which would get their address assignments from the proposed RIR.

4) That the proposed RIR has clearly defined procedures open to all interested parties for the
development of its own IP address assignment policies and for the IP address assignment policies that the RIR might recommend to the Address Council for consideration as global policies.

5) That these policies include holding at least one annual policy development meeting open to all interested parties.

6) That the proposed RIR has demonstrable capability to effectively implement the RIR global policies referred to in section 2d of this proposal for the entire RIR's proposed region of coverage.

7) That the introduction of a new RIR must be based on a "Sound Business Plan". The plan must be reviewed by ICANN and by theexisting RIRs. The process for creating a new RIR must be included in the MOU.