Draft Policy ARIN-2017-4: Remove Reciprocity Requirement for Inter-RIR Transfers

[ARIN]

On 05 April 2017, the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) accepted 
"ARIN-prop-236: Remove Reciprocity Requirement for Inter-RIR Transfers" 
as a Draft Policy.

Draft Policy ARIN-2017-4 is below and can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2017_4.html

You are encouraged to discuss all Draft Policies on PPML. The AC will 
evaluate the discussion in order to assess the conformance of this draft 
policy with ARIN's Principles of Internet number resource policy as 
stated in the Policy Development Process (PDP). Specifically, these 
principles are:

  * Enabling Fair and Impartial Number Resource Administration
  * Technically Sound
  * Supported by the Community

The PDP can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html

Draft Policies and Proposals under discussion can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/index.html

Regards,

Sean Hopkins
Policy Analyst
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)



Draft Policy ARIN-2017-4: Remove Reciprocity Requirement for Inter-RIR 
Transfers

Problem Statement:

AFRINIC and LACNIC are currently considering one-way inter-RIR transfer 
proposals. Those RIR communities feel a one-way policy a policy that 
allows network operators in their regions to obtain space from another 
region and transfer it into AFRINIC and LACNIC may best meet the needs 
of the operators in that region.

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 staff formally indicate to AFRINIC that the 
word reciprocal in 8.4 prohibits ARIN from allowing ARIN-registered 
space to transfer directly to AFRINIC (in this context).

ARIN as a community should recognize that other RIR operator communities 
have different needs than we do. We should recognize that:

- network operators in AFRINIC in LACNIC have need to obtain space in 
the market;

- have reasons they think are important to not allow two-way transfers; and

- we should understand that the history of the RIR system has led to 
LACNIC and AFRINIC having multiple orders of magnitude less IPv4 address 
space than ARIN does.

Policy statement:

Add the following sentence after the first sentence of NRPM 8.4:

Inter-regional transfers may take place to an RIR without a reciprocal 
inter-regional transfer policy only when the recipient RIR has less IPv4 
address space in its inventory than the global average of RIR IPv4 
address inventories.

Timetable for implementation: Upon the ratification of any inter-RIR 
transfer policy at another RIR that is one-way as described in the 
problem statement.