[rpd] Last Call for "AFPUB-2016-GEN-001-DRAFT-04 - Internet Number Resources Review by AFRINIC"

[Jackson Muthili]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 8:21 AM, Lu Heng <h.lu at anytimechinese.com> wrote:
> Dear Alain:
>
> The NRO link(basically shows the AFRINIC RSA), and almost the entire Email
> you wrote, basically saying(correct me if I have misunderstanding)
>
> "Because there is a De-registration process in the RSA, that justifying
> making a policy to take resource from active members".

A contract is legally binding and enforceable between the parties that
have agreed to it and signed it. In fact if the contract you signed
with AfriNIC already has terms under which resources are taken away,
then those resources can be taken away when you breach the concerned
terms of that contract. Otherwise you should not have signed it.

> If RSA can guides the policy, then we wouldn't be needing a community here
> to make the policy, we can have AFRINIC legal write the RSA and make the
> entire policy based on that.
>
> Policy guides the RSA, not the other way around.
>
> Bottom up process means the prevail document are always made by the
> community not by the lawyer.

The policy may have guided the process that produced the RSA. But once
you have signed it, you are bound legally to its terms. You cannot
circumvent breach by falling back to policy when you are already
contractually bound.

> Debating RSA content are irrelevant here,

100% relevant when you are already bound by its terms and conditions.

> For example, what if AFRINIC get into
> legal trouble with large teleco, do you have a solution for that?

AfriNIC cannot operate with apprehension and trepidation based on
baseless and unfounded threats for litigation.

A contract once signed is legally binding and fully enforceable. How
it came to be or not to be is immaterial.

-J