[arin-ppml] ARIN & Governance

[Bill Woodcock]

> On Sep 9, 2021, at 3:32 AM, Steven Ryerse <SRyerse at eclipse-networks.com> wrote:
> Since the day I first joined this forum there have been numerous comments in this forum about John Curran’s continued assertions that the ARIN Community Governs the Regions policy’s. John’s comments in this forum the last couple of days are the first significant comments I remember from John - about the reality that there is another side to that Governance assertion.  I thought they were refreshing because they are the truth.
> This really is about how Corporations (ARIN is non-profit Corporation) really work.  There is a fiduciary responsibility from the members of the Board of Directors and from the Senior Management Team including the President & CEO.

As someone who’s spent nearly twenty-five years as an ARIN constituent, and fifteen of those years on ARIN’s board, I concur with Steven.

ARIN’s great strength as an organization and a community is the fact that its membership do work hard to create policy that is, in itself, responsible.

It’s true that it’s the board’s unavoidable legal obligation to provide fiduciary responsibility, and that that obligation overrides the membership’s policy-making function.  It’s also true that that’s a legal requirement under US law, and the law of every other country I’m familiar with.

What makes ARIN so successful is the fact that, while feeling that I was exercising the full extent of my responsibility and due-diligence, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that, in fifteen years, we as a board needed to second-guess or question the community’s policy-making.  During that time, the community developed literally hundreds of policies.

ARIN’s success is that its community-driven policymaking process and its legally-imposed fiduciary responsibilities are in alignment, rather than in conflict.

                                -Bill

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP
URL: <https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/attachments/20210909/0aac44ab/attachment.sig>