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Hi Milton and others,<br>
<br>
I don't generally comment on these sorts of things, and so please
excuse me if this comment is untimely. I have a single comment
about your response to counsel.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/12/15 10:53 PM, Milton L Mueller
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div class="WordSection1"><o:p></o:p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Counsel asserts: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"...if the policy were adopted, ARIN could
arguably become subject to the jurisdiction and laws passed by
governments outside our service region. This may lead to ARIN
being a litigant in courts of nations outside its service
region and subject to their requirements and judgments. ARIN
will need to accept greater legal expenditures and risks, as
well as potentially larger costs in order to take this greater
scope into consideration in ARIN's registry activities on an
ongoing basis."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Questionable. As long as ARIN permits its
number resources to be used outside of the region, as it
currently does, the same risk exists regardless of whether
2014-1 passes or not. Note that even ARIN’s Counsel states
that he supports allowing network operators headquartered in
ARIN's region to make use of ARIN-registered resources out of
the North American region. Such cases would pose the same
jurisdictional risks, if indeed those risks are significant.
Thus it is unclear how 2014-1 changes anything in this regard.
Note also that a RIPE policy in place for the past 2 and a
half years has not led to any such problems.</p>
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<br>
If I understand what counsel is claiming, it is in a way a
contrapositive inference. That is- because ARIN does not assign
resources to applicants who do not have a presence within its
region, there is no logical basis for assertion of jurisdiction
beyond that region. That is- the RIR system acts as a sort of legal
and political circuit breaker so that governments do not overreach,
and this proposal would remove that isolation.<br>
<br>
In the "What Could Possibly Go Wrong" department, there are two
general classes of things going wrong:<br>
<ol>
<li>ARIN applies local jurisdiction rules for the country of the
applicant, in which case ARIN policies risk becoming potentially
conflicting country-specific policies; or</li>
<li>ARIN ignores any such jurisdictional mandate. Further
thoughts on this case follow.<br>
</li>
</ol>
It seems to me that there are three risks of actions a country could
take if ARIN did not apply their rules :<br>
<ul>
<li>A country bans its citizens from transacting with ARIN.</li>
<li>A country bans origination of announcement of ARIN-assigned
blocks within its borders.</li>
<li>A country either attempts a comprehensive control of the
infrastructure through multilateral agreements with other
countries, or simply joins in existing efforts to do so.</li>
</ul>
Today the risk is bound to countries within a region. It is the
third case that would do the most harm to the Internet, as has been
demonstrated in previous attempts. The way RIRs have addressed the
third case has been to engage with governments in region to discuss
their concerns. Since you cite them in your email, I'll mention
that RIPE, for instance, has an extremely effective and useful
government roundtable. To do so at a worldwide level leads to
ICANN-like structures. While those structures may be necessary for
ICANN, I would hope we could avoid them here.<br>
<br>
To your point that there is no evidence to counsel's claim, I agree
with you that the best policy is made through practical experience
(a'la "rough consensus and running code"). That has to be balanced
with what could happen if you get it wrong the first time. This
brings to the fore whether the problem is sufficiently important to
take on those risks. I have no opinion at this time as to that
balance, nor do I have a feel for the level of risk we are talking
about. RIPE's experience thus far seems to indicate it's pretty
low, as you point out, but that may be because they have excellent
relationships with governments in region.<br>
<br>
Warm regards,<br>
<br>
Eliot Lear<br>
<br>
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