RIR Accountability

Member-elected boards govern the RIRs. Boards provide fiduciary oversight, strategic guidance, and verification of the policy development process. RIRs have implemented mechanisms to avoid capture through their election, bylaws, incorporation articles, and membership provisions.

Stable, Open and Transparent

The mechanisms by which the RIRs coordinate policy and governance matters require consensus and support from the communities in every region. This process encourages stability, but allows for change when policy and governance matters have been explored in regional discussions across the globe. This same structure provides very strong protections against capture, as action contrary to the global multi-stakeholder community would have to succeed in structural capture of the policy-making or governance apparatus of each region to achieve an outcome contrary to the global community’s actual intent.

For more than twenty years, the RIR system has served as a successful model for the coordination and administration of Internet number resources. It has proven that community-based policy-development and governance can be coordinated globally in a transparent, open manner and be responsive to the requirements of the entire Internet multi-stakeholder community.

Joint RIR Stability Fund

The NRO established a Joint RIR Stability Fund in 2015 to help ensure continuous operation of the Internet’s IP address management system globally. This fund can be utilized in the event of unforeseen disruptions or emergencies affecting the stability of one or more of the RIRs to perform critical functions relating to Internet number resource distribution. Find out more.