NRO EC Meeting Minutes: November 2017

Attendees

Executive Council:

• John Curran (JC), ARIN: Chair
• Paul Wilson (PW), APNIC: Secretary & Vice Chair
• Alan Barrett (AB), AFRINIC: Treasurer
• Oscar Robles (OR), LACNIC
• Axel Pawlik (AP), RIPE NCC

Observers:

• Pablo Hinojosa (PH), APNIC
• Paul Andersen (PA), ARIN
• Nate Davis (ND), ARIN
• Hollis Kara (HK), ARIN
• Mark Kosters (MK), ARIN
• John Sweeting (JS), ARIN
• Ernesto Majó (EM), LACNIC
• Paul Rendek (PR), RIPE NCC

Secretariat:

German Valdez (GV), NRO
Susannah Gray (SG), NRO (Scribe)

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Agenda 

1. Agenda Review
2. Minutes Review
   1. 27 October 2017 (f2f)
3. ASO Review Update
   1. Recommendations Status
   2. Response to ICANN Board
4. ASO AC Subgroup on Empowered Communities
5. ASO AC Consultation Request to RIR Legal Staff
6. RIR Open Forum at the IGF
7. IANA Review Committee Update
8. CG Input / Consultation
9. Review Open Actions
10. Next Meetings
    1. Teleconference Tuesday December
    2. Teleconference Tuesday 16 January
       1. Secretariat Request to Change it to Tuesday 23 January
    3.  f2f Meeting Friday 16 March San Juan PR (Right after ICANN 61)
11.  AOB
    1. NRO Wiki
12.  Adjourn

Resolutions

No Resolutions were passed at this meeting.

New Action Items 

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0. Welcome

JC welcomed the participants to the meeting.

1. Agenda Review

Item 11a, NRO Wiki, was added to the AOB section.

2. Minutes Review

The NRO EC noted that it had not yet had time to review the minutes from the F2F meeting on 27 October 2017: feedback will be sent to the mailing list.

3. ASO Review Update

a) Recommendations Status

AB noted that he had circulated a revised version of the ‘Consideration of the 2017 ASO Review Recommendations’ document incorporating the input and feedback received from the ASO AC.

JC noted that, if the NRO EC agrees, this revision should now be sent back to the ASO AC and suggest it is used as a joint response.

There were no objections.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-1: JC to send latest version of the ‘Consideration of the 2017 ASO Review Recommendations’ document to the ASO AC and ask if this version can be used as a joint response. 

b) Response to ICANN Board

JC noted that the ASO needs to update the ICANN Board’s Organizational Effectiveness Committee (OEC) and that the ASO Review and the ‘Consideration of the 2017 ASO Review Recommendations’ document should be forwarded to it. Once this is done, this item should be considered closed with respect to the ICANN Board. He continued that, when the ASO moves into an implementation phase, it would need to work with various other parts of ICANN but for now, only the OEC needs to be informed.

4. ASO AC Subgroup on Empowered Communities

JC explained that the Subgroup had noted that it has concerns regarding indemnification and its ability to be part of the Director Removal process in the Empowered Community without legal indemnification. The ASO AC asked the NRO EC to change its Interim Procedures to state, “When the ASO AC has an approved procedure, the NRO EC will seek input.”. This gives the ASO AC the flexibility to be included if/when it has procedures. If it does not have procedures, it is not obliged to act.

JC noted that ‘Interim’ could be dropped from the Interim Procedures whenever the NRO EC decides to do so.

PW noted that the Interim Procedures could be adopted as Procedures upon the legal team’s recommendation, which should include the team’s recommendation on the ASO AC’s proposal.

JC added that the legal team had provided feedback regarding notification: there is a clause in the ICANN Bylaws that notes that the Empowered Community participants need to stay informed. The legal team noted that the ASO has an obligation to keep its community informed and it cannot pass this responsibility on to the community itself.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-2: JC to update the Interim Procedures to reflect the legal team’s input and the request from the ASO AC. The document should be sent to the legal team for final review before being sent to the ASO AC.

Indemnity

JC noted that he agreed that the ASO AC should not be obliged to participate if it is unsure whether it will be indemnified. OR and PW agreed.

JC explained that it is unclear whether ICANN’s indemnification would cover the ASO AC participants. ARIN is engaged in discussions with its insurance company to see if the policies that cover its Board could be extended to include the ASO AC participants from its region.

AP noted that the RIPE NCC is also consulting with its insurers.

AB noted that AFRINIC is investigating how to cover its ASO AC participants.

OR noted that there are some complications in the LACNIC region: the insurers asked if the ASO AC representatives represent LACNIC. This is problematic because, for policy discussion purposes, ASO AC representatives should not be considered part of LACNIC. The discussion is on going.

PW added that APNIC is not currently looking into the issue. He noted that it would be hard to explain to the insurers what the ASO AC’s role is in this instance and how it would incur liability. He asked JC to share any documentation.

JC noted that he would check with his legal team whether he could share the Q&A between ARIN and its insurance company.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-3: JC to check whether he can forward to the NRO EC the Q&A between ARIN and its insurers on coverage for its ASO AC representatives.

5. ASO AC Consultation Request to RIR Legal Staff

JC noted that the ASO AC had asked whether it could refer a question to ICANN’s legal team: do the diversity requirements for the ICANN Board, as outlined in the ICANN Bylaws, apply to the ASO AC seat appointments to the Board.

AP noted that the ICANN legal team would be best positioned to answer this.

PW said that he was unsure if the ASO could or should ask questions of ICANN’s legal team. He thought that it would be more appropriate for the RIRs’ legal team to provide advice. He continued that the purpose of the NomCom selected seats is to enable the SOs to select their Board representatives using their own processes and requirements. It is therefore the NomCom’s duty to balance the Board and not the SOs duty.

AB agreed with PW: the RIRs’ legal team should be consulted and clarity sought.

OR noted that, while he is OK with consulting the RIRs’ legal team, the ICANN legal team would be better positioned to answer.

JC added that there are two sets of provisions regarding diversity in the ICANN Bylaws: one can be read that the NomCom has the entire responsibly but the other, the overall principles, could be read as applying to the ASO.

The NRO EC agreed to consult with the RIRs’ legal team rather than ICANN’s legal team.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-4: JC ask the RIRs’ legal team to clarify whether the diversity requirements for the ICANN Board, as outlined in the ICANN Bylaws, apply to the ASO AC appointments to the Board.

6. RIR open forum at the IGF

The NRO EC discussed the logistics for the RIR Open Forum session at the upcoming IGF.

PW noted that the original purpose of the Open Forum was to introduce the RIR system. The expectation now is that the RIRs should focus on recent activities related to Internet governance. He volunteered to give the presentation and asked for input from the CCG to help prepare it.

AB, OR and AP will all be attending the IGF and can support as necessary.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-5: PW/CCG to prepare new content for the RIR session during the Open Forum at the IGF.

7. IANA Review Committee Update

ND gave an update on the recent IANA Review Committee (RC) Meeting:

• The Draft procedures were finalised, approved and uploaded to the NRO website.
• The RIRs will publish a simplified matrix documenting IANA’s performance over the year.
• The matrix will be published at the end of January 2018, after PTI has provided the December report. There will be a community comment period of 30 days. This feedback will be incorporated into the Review Committee’s report, which will be provided to the NRO EC as advice.
• A report template will be drafted by 1 December.

PW asked about the workload involved in creating the matrix and what value it adds to the current PTI reports: it appears to be a manual process that involves rearranging existing data.

ND noted that the matrix is intended to capture the 12 PTI reports in a consolidated and summarised fashion, broken down by request type. He added that a consolidated overview would help the community digest the data and would mean that the IANA RC can refer to one single document.

PW agreed that the matrix would be useful for reporting to the community in a precise way.

 8. CG Input / Consultation

• RSCGJS gave an update from the RSCG:

• The RSCG sent its 2018 Work Plan to the EC for review.
• ITHI Project: The community consultation will end in December. Input will be incorporated into a final document, which will be delivered to the to NRO EC. The document will also be sent to the ECG so it can begin its work.
• WHOIS Accuracy Project and Registry Accuracy Projects are on going.
• Inter-RIR Transfers: Procedures are still being improved. A best practice document is being put together by the five RIRs and will be posted on the RSCG wiki. Leslie Nobile, ARIN, is contributing to this project.
• RIR Statistics Presentation: The presentation is being updated as the data is out-dated and focused mainly on IPv4 exhaustion. The community is more interested in transfers and how IPv6 is gaining traction. The updated presentation should be finalised in time for the APNIC 45 meeting.
• RSCG Collaboration and Meetings: The RSCG proposed quarterly teleconferences and one F2F, scheduled for APNIC 45 in order to finalise the ITHI report and the WHOIS Accuracy report.

JC confirmed that the NRO EC had received the RSCG’s work plan.

PW commented that, now the NRO wiki has been implemented, it would be good to have these documents uploaded and available to the NRO EC, with links to further documentation.

JS noted that the documents are on the RSCG wiki as the NRO wiki has only just become available. The end goal is to post them to the NRO wiki.

PW noted there were some issues with RDAP that cross over into the RSCG area. He continued that he supported the updating of the RIR statistics report and suggested adding RPKI statistics. While this might be an ECG work item, it should go into the report, as it is part of the RIRs’ public services.

JS confirmed that this would be included.

JS asked for approval for the RSCG F2F meeting in February during the APNIC meeting.

There were no objections: the meeting was approved.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-6: JS to update the work plan to include information about RDAP and RPKI and circulate to the NRO EC. 
• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-7: NRO EC: All to look at RSCG’s work plan 2018 with the aim to approve it over the mailing list before the next NRO EC Teleconference.  

• ECG

MK gave an update from the ECG:

• The ECG is finalizing its work plan.
• A document series on GitHub regarding extended stats has been proposed. There are four ways from the five RIRs on how to handle this so a single reference point will be created.
• Transfer Report: A lot of the code required for making the report available on the NRO website is ready but some clarifications are necessary.
• RPKI – validation reconsidered: This is part of the IETF work and there are some questions as to whether the IETF is going to accept it. Some of the demands some participants are making may mean this can’t be implemented. There are some other political concerns that the ECG is working on.
• RPKI – consolidated reporting: There is agreement on all the data that is needed. RIPE NCC will take the lead on this.
• F2F Meeting: As the RSCG will complete its work on the ITHI project early in 2018, the ECG would like to request a F2F meeting in February. This will enable the ECG to finalise its work on ITHI, extended stats and RPKI consolidated reporting.

JC was concerned that four proposed F2F meetings per year was too many.

MK noted that it has become hard for the ECG to find time to meet for more than 1.5 hours during the IETF week due to scheduling conflicts and the meetings becoming longer and busier.

JC noted that he did not want it to become obligatory that RIR staff attended the IETF meetings.

AB supported the ECG having one or two F2Fs per year as long as they were productive. However, he did not support having mandatory F2Fs during every IETF meetings: he did not want to be obliged to send staff to every meeting and would rather asses this on a case-by-case basis.

PW noted that, if meeting during the IETFs was no longer productive, the ECG should pick another location and have a longer, more focused meeting in line with the other CGs.

MK noted that the work plan would be modified to remove IETF meetings. He added that informal meetings could be organised anyway during the IETF for whoever is in attendance. He asked for approval to hold an ECG meeting in February at APNIC HQ.

JC requested the work plan be revised before giving approval.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-8: MK to revise the work plan adjusting the number of F2Fs to no more than two.
• CCG

HK gave an update from the CCG:

• The CCG is working on its work plan. The CCG was waiting for the ECG and RSCG to finalise their work plans so it could incorporate any related activities. The plan will be sent to the NRO EC by the end of the year.
• NRO Website update: SG forwarded the proposed menu structure and design mock up for the new website.

HK noted that the NRO website project has been stalled and interrupted many times. She added that the project was budgeted as a work item for 2017. Work is now starting again on this but will not be completed by the end of the year so will need to be considered in the 2018 budget.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-9: NRO EC to review proposed website menu structure and design and provide feedback to the CCG.

 9. Review Open Actions

10.  Next Meetings

a) Teleconference: Tuesday, 19 December, during the IGF.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-12: GV to check IGF schedule and propose times for NRO EC Teleconference on 19 December, which is scheduled during the IGF.

b) Teleconference Tuesday 16 January 2018

The Secretariat requested to change this teleconference to Tuesday, 23 January. There were no objections.

c) F2F Meeting Friday 16 March, San Juan PR (Right after ICANN 61)

JC asked if the meeting would be organised independently of the ICANN meeting. He asked that the venue be reserved ASAP due to the on-going issues in Puerto Rico.

GV confirmed that the meeting is being organised separately and noted JC’s concerns.

11. AOB

a) Update on the NRO wiki.

PW thanked the Secretariat for its work in getting the NRO wiki set up and noted that it is a powerful tool and will be transformative for the NRO’s work. He noted that guidelines need to be drafted on which staff will have access to what, how accounts will be created, groups and access permissions. He asked that there is transparency on this so that it is clear who has access to what parts of the wiki. He noted that this it is important to make sure the right staff are in the right places as the wiki evolves, new users are added and the roles are changed with the rotation each year.

GV confirmed that the secretariat is working on procedures and user access policies and would update the NRO on this in the coming weeks.

JC added that it’s important to get permissions and access right so that links to do not get broken when documents are shared.

• NEW ACTION ITEM 171117-13: Secretariat to create documentation on users, permissions and access for the NRO Wiki.

SG noted that she had assumed that the NRO EC would be able to access all areas: this could be discussed once the requested documentation is created.

SG asked AP what kind of technical support for the wiki could be asked for from the RIPE NCC as the wiki is located on its servers.

AP said he’d set up a meeting with the RIPË NCC Web Services team to discuss this further.

12. Adjourn

JC thanked the participants. The meeting was adjourned at 14:46 UTC.