[arin-ppml] Another possible way forward on 2009-3

[Scott Leibrand]

While attending the recent AfriNIC and especially LACNIC meetings the 
last couple weeks, I was struck by some
the discussions of the Global Policy Proposal for the Allocation of IPv4 
Blocks to Regional Internet Registries (our 2009-3).  Those discussions 
finally made it clear to me that one of the reasons 2009-3 is such a 
difficult policy to get consensus on is that the original policy, as 
proposed, is a global policy proposal that has some local policy 
aspects, namely that requires each RIR to return reclaimed space.  
Ideally, global policies are supposed to maintain a clean separation 
from local policies: global policy is supposed to only govern the 
relationship between the IANA and the RIRs, and local policy defines 
what the RIR can do internally.

As a side effect of the blurring of global and local policy in the 
current revision of 2009-3, we (and most of the other RIRs) are having 
an interesting debate about exactly which space should be covered by the 
policy (such as legacy vs. non-legacy), and some people are 
uncomfortable even with a legacy-only requirement.  So, as a result of a 
suggestion on the floor at LACNIC, and in an attempt to restore the 
proper separation between global and local policy, I drafted the 
following text for the 2nd paragraph of section A:

"Each RIR through their respective chosen policies and strategies may 
recover IPv4 address space which is under their administration and 
designate any such space for return to the IANA. Each RIR shall at 
quarterly intervals return any such designated address space to the IANA 
in aggregated blocks of /24 or larger, for inclusion in the recovered 
IPv4 pool."

Thoughts?

-Scott

P.S.  I also think we need to have a full public policy debate on what 
our chosen policies should be to designate recovered address space for 
return to IANA, but I think that is a separate local policy issue, and 
therefore deserves its own thread and eventually its own policy proposal.