[ppml] Can the RIRs bypass the IETF and do their own thing?

[Dean Anderson]

> Not quite. The RIRs have authority delegated to them by IANA, and IANA
> operates under the terms of its MoU and SLA with the IETF. So the RIRs'
> scope is to set and implement policy within their delegated authority,
> which itself has to be within the terms of the IANA MoU and SLA.

I looked into this some time ago, and found that the U.S. Department of
Commerce delegated authority to ICANN, and that ICANN delegated to the
RIRs.  According to IANA, IANA is just the bookkeeper, and is run by
ICANN under contract with the U.S. Government:

According documents at http://www.icann.org/general/agreements.htm

ICANN contracted with the U.S. Government to handle the IANA function.

According to one MoU, the IETF "appointed" ICANN to perform IANA
functions, however, there seems to be no authority for IETF to make such
a delegation. This MoU is just a notice that the IETF concurs with the
award of the U.S. Goverment contract.  Using the word "appointed"  
doesn't mean the IETF has any actual authority to make appointments or 
to appoint someone else.

I note that the IANA physical address is the same as ICANN:

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA  90292
USA

+1-310-823-9358 (phone)
+1-310-823-8649 (facsimile)

The agreements that I've found with ICANN, e.g.  
http://www.icann.org/general/ietf-iana-agreement-v8.htm place the IETF
as a technical collaborator to assist ICANN with the IANA function. The
IETF provides technical experts to the ICANN/IANA.  The IETF is just a
technical consultant on IANA functions.  Administative authority over
RIRs resides in ICANN, and above ICANN, the U.S. Government.

ICANN can end the MoU at any time, and find a new technical consultant.
The IETF can also end the MoU at any time. But the IETF doesn't have the
authority to appoint a new IANA operator.

> In this case, I would check out section 4.3 of RFC 2860, especially
> the clause (b) in the second paragraph. It's clear to me that centrally-
> allocated ULAs are in IETF scope under that clause.

Nothing in these MoUs supercede the U.S. Government contracts and
agreements that delegate the actual final authority.  Also, RFC2860 is
superceded by the January 2007 MoU that I cited above.

The authority goes top down:
    US Government
    ICANN
    RIRs

The RIR's can do whatever ICANN and the US Government allow them to do.  
The IETF _can_ be taken out of the picture if there is cause to do so.

		--Dean

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