Re: Shaping the Future of ICP-2: Community Input Extended to December 2024

[David Conrad via NANOG <nanog () nanog org>]

Bill,

On Nov 16, 2024, at 10:00 PM, William Herrin <bill () herrin us> wrote:
> It seems to me that an RIR should be expected to locate itself in a legal jurisdiction where they're unlikely to be 
> ordered to alter service that is within their territory but outside of that legal jurisdiction.

Depending on what you mean by “alter service that is within their territory but outside of that legal jurisdiction”, 
while it might be possible to identify such a jurisdiction now (I’m unable to think of one off hand, certainly not the 
US), “Past results are no guarantee of future performance” and a side effect of regulation/legal action can be to limit 
the ability of the RIR to counter that action.

> Moreover, it seems to me that they should routinely monitor the local and regional legal environments and maintain 
> contingency plans for relocation in the event of adverse changes.

Having long ago had some experience relocating a (much, much smaller) RIR from one legal jurisdiction to another, this 
would be a non-trivial undertaking with significant cost and implying a high level of disruption, both to the community 
the RIR serves as well as its staff. Pragmatically speaking, I’m skeptical either the RIRs or their members would view 
the benefits outweighing the costs/risks.  That is, if (say) there was a court order in the US that required ARIN to 
invalidate a particular block of addresses, I’m skeptical ARIN and its staff would pull up stakes and move to another 
country or that the ARIN membership would be inclined to demand such a move.

> To the extent that the ICP offers ICANN authority over the number system, ICANN must do the same.

I suspect this is a bit outside the scope of the current effort.

> 2. I'm not convinced that the service regions should be limited by the ICP to non-overlapping geographic territories.

While geographic monopolies may have made sense in the past, it is unclear to me how/why they make sense today (unless 
the point is to create/perpetuate a cartel).

Regards,
-drc

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