[arin-ppml] Revised: ARIN-2017-4: Remove Reciprocity Requirement for Inter-RIR Transfers

[John Curran]

On 7 Sep 2017, at 12:42 PM, Kevin Blumberg <kevinb at thewire.ca> wrote:
> 
> In re-reading the problem statement the following information was given.
> 
> "ARIN staff, in reply to an inquiry from AFRINIC, have formally indicated that ARINs 8.4 policy language will not allow ARIN to participate in such one-way transfers."
> 
> The use of one-way transfers completely mitigates any loss on the one side, and opens concern from the other. 
> 
> A question for Staff. Would a policy in another region that allows transfers, if a ratio at or above 1:1 basis work? Would that be considered reciprocal?

Kevin -

Presently staff considers the reciprocal requirement to require that bidirectional transfers 
generally available under the other RIRs Inter-RIR transfer policy– i.e. if you meet the 
specific recipient criteria, then one should generally be able to be a recipient of resources 
coming from a source located with another RIR.

Any requirement for an overall "ratio” would mean that the Inter-RIR transfers policy could 
no longer be generally relied upon; its applicability to any given transfer request would be 
based on factors not controlled by the source or recipient organizations.

Such a constraint in another RIR’s inter-RIR transfer policy would create a circumstance 
not covered by our existing 8.4 Inter-RIR policy language, nor raised & addressed in the 
history of its development, so it is not 100% clear what the community wants ARIN staff 
to do under such circumstances.

We likely would be conservative and notify the community that such a constraint for a 1:1 
ratio makes a policy which is not clearly reciprocal, and given that reciprocal is a criteria 
under which transfers _only_ may occur, such a policy would prevent Inter-RIR transfers
from with that RIR community, unless/until revised NRPM policy language is adopted by 
ARIN community making more clear the appropriate handling of this situation. 

Thanks! (and I do hope this helps your policy development efforts)
/John 

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN