[address-policy-wg] IGF session on IP address policy

On the afternoon of the first day of the Internet Governance Forum, there will be a workshop on "What is the best response to IPv4 scarcity? Exploring a global transfer market for IPv4 addresses." It will be moderated by myself and Geoff Huston, Chief Scientist at APNIC. There will also be a main session discussion of the topic the next day. 

The workshop will take a unique format. It will be organized not as a series of panelists speaking _at_ an audience, but as a structured, multi-stakeholder deliberation over policy alternatives among peers.  It will test the extent to which the various stakeholders interested in that issue can come to agreement on a set of five basic policy issues affecting IPv4 number resources. The five policy issues we will discuss are:

    the role of needs assessment in market trades;
    the status of legacy number block holders;
    the accuracy of post-transaction records;
    aggregation policies
    market power

For each of these issues two or three opposing positions are set out, and the workshop will attempt to document who takes which position, why, and whether the group can come to rough consensus on one position or some new compromise position formulated on the spot.

The panel is scheduled for 14:30 - 16:00 on 6 November, the first day of the IGF, in Conference Room 9. Although the actual remote participation link for this session has not yet been created by the IGF Secretariat, this page http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/remote-participation provides general information and guidance regarding how the IGF will facilitate remote participation. Baku's time zone is 9 hours ahead of US Eastern time, and 3 hours ahead of Continental European time.

Milton L. Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Internet Governance Project
http://blog.internetgovernance.org