Re: An update on the AfriNIC situation

[Masataka Ohta <mohta () necom830 hpcl titech ac jp>]

John Levine wrote:

> I would be astonished if ICANN had a position. For one thing, they
> have no provision for dealing with competing IP registries since the
> issue has never come up

As

        ICP-2: Criteria for Establishment of New Regional
        Internet Registries
        https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/new-rirs-criteria-2012-02-25-en
        2) The new RIR must demonstrate that it has the broad
        support of the LIRs (ISP community) in the proposed region

if overwhelming majority, which means there is no competition,
of LIRs in AfriNIC region request to abandon AfriNIC and to
have an alternate RIR, ICANN should honor the request.

> For another, they are extremely allergic to
> anything that might even possibly involve them in a lawsuit.
ICANN was established to protect governance structure (including
RIRs, of course) of the Internet free from government (especially
USG) interventions. As such, ICANN is expected to work to isolate
African RIR operations from existing lawsuit.

                                                Masataka Ohta