[rpd] Ratified Policy Proposal - AFPUB-2020-GEN-006-DRAFT03, AFRINIC Number Resource Policy Transfer

[Paul Hjul]

Commenting from my tablet so... (italics what is being replied to)








*AFRINIC is a company limited by guarantee. From the companies act
inMauritius:https://www.mcci.org/media/35749/the-companies-act-2001.pdf
<https://www.mcci.org/media/35749/the-companies-act-2001.pdf>my
understanding is that annual reporting requirements are primarily thetotal
indebtedness, members and directors.  This is insufficient for
anorganization that can impact over 1 billion people.*

Quite familiar with the Mauritius Companies Act 😉 including some very
significant amendments of recent years.

The selection of being a private as opposed to public company leads me very
strongly to agree with the sentiment of "insufficient for an organization
that can impact..." it though is a discussion that is isn't an RPD thing. I
am pretty sure that I've publicly on more than one occasion argued that
Afrinic ought to have been established as a public company limited by
guarantee and that misapplying the Virginia non-stock corporation statute
was a devastating if somewhat amusing misstep.

Even with the limited annual reporting requirements taking a gander at the
company registry database from time to time should get a person more than
mildly concerned.

I dont think the ITU really enters the mix as it is an intergovernmental
organization. The concurrence and consensus was (and should be) that RIRs
and the like aren't. RIPE certainly is sitting with a uniquely vexing
challenge flowing from the unlawful conduct of Putin and weaponization of
the Internet but that doesn't make the case to support a departure from one
of the foundational bulwarks for a multistakeholder distributed system
which is that you have different organizations performing their functional
scope subject to the law. There are all sorts of things which have
implications of countries capacity to exercise sovereignty which have been
agreed to be operated on a commercial and global community basis. We don't
have a global intergovernmental body that manages the delivery of cement
yet critical infrastructure of great importance to sovereignty is
constructed on contractual terms all the time. The transmission of payments
has significant concerns yet Visa and Mastercard are not suggested to be
suited to special intergovernmental treatment. SWIFT like the RIRs is
governed as an entity under the laws of its seat (Belgium).

APNIC is certainly on a better footing after 2024.

A good transfer policy would reflect this...

On Tue, 02 Jun 2026, 7:48 am Benson Muite <benson_muite at emailplus.org>
wrote:

> Paul Hjul <hjul.paul at gmail.com> writes:
>
> >
> >
> > [So I am quoting a different email from you]
> >
> >> In the case of AFRINIC, they perceive it as encroaching the staff, and
> >> then the board doesn’t ratify it. May be because Mauritius law and that
> >> means that we must change AFRINIC to another jurisdiction? What is
> clear is
> >> that the community is the responsible of how the resources are handled
> by
> >> means of policies (not the staff, not the Board, not AFRINIC as an
> >> organisation), and this ALSO means that if they are misused against the
> >> policies, the community also is the responsible and has the RIGHT to
> decide
> >> how and even when the resources must be recovered. AFRINIC just execute
> the
> >> orders of the community in regard to policies. This is the same in all
> the
> >> RIRs.
> >>
> >
> > There is a serious problem with the culture amongst some of the staff
> but I
> > actually do think the vast majority of employees actually do try to do
> the
> > right thing and that some careful leadership from the top will solve
> things
> > reasonably quickly.
>
> AFRINIC has mostly operated succesfully, but there has also been financial
> mismanagement.
>
> > AFRINIC as an organization has a long standing problem of certain
> insiders
> > wishing to use the organization to advance some bizarre ideological bent
> > and to use the cantankerous fights which flow as a smokescreen to engage
> in
> > general larceny.
> >
> > When anybody gets caught with their trousers down poor Mauritius as a
> > jurisdiction gets blamed.
> >
> > The problem isn't Mauritius as a jurisdiction. With the way AFRINIC has
> > misdirected itself the litigation space would be infinitely more
> hazardous
> > in South Africa (for example). We would probably have had a 15 year
> running
> > saga over whether and how PAJA applies and while there is a certain
> > intellectual curiosity for many reasons the questions at hand are best
> left
> > as academic. If AFRINIC fell in one of the United Kingdom jurisdictions I
> > can assure you that the barristers who've been engaged to take
> injunctions
> > out on AFRINIC would have the same level of success (if not greater) as
> > they've had in Mauritius (there would be significantly fewer matters but
> > the overall situation would be similar). My knowledge of Kenya is quite
> > limited but I have little doubt that the Keynan judiciary would largely
> > align with the Mauritius and English courts - although the judges and
> even
> > counsel will be more likely to wear wigs. Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana
> are
> > distinct jurisdictions to South Africa and you might be able to avoid
> some
> > of the delay that would arise in South Africa but you'd get much the same
> > endpoint as in South Africa. If AFRINIC were seated in eSwatini we'd be
> > able to argue for a more Roman-Dutch contract law than anywhere else but
> I
> > am not sure anybody will actually be happy with the outcome. Rwanda is
> > showing promise on some fronts but I don't think we can really escape the
> > extent to which stability of rule of law is still to be entrenched.
> >
> > Now there are one or two aspects and peculiarities of Mauritius and there
> > is a certain parochial feel to that annoys me [although we should
> probably
> > blame the French], but the problem is not - and has never been - about
> the
> > choice of jurisdiction.
> > More importantly there is a massive difference between allocation
> policies
> > and policies aiming to control the utilization of allocated resources.
> > Grandfathering is a longstanding way of avoiding problems but
> emphatically
> > avoiding retrospective rule making doesn't serve the interests of staff.
> > This actually presents itself quite strongly the moment "legacy" space
> > comes up.
> >
> > If RIPE NCC were to behave as badly as AFRINIC has I can assure that the
> > authorities in the Netherlands would have operated in a vary similar
> manner
> > to Mauritius. I really don't know if LACNIC has ever tried to pick the
> > wrong fight on spurious grounds but I don't think the courts of
> > Uruguay will afford it some unique tolerance.
> > The less that is said about the United States the better. [If you take a
> > gander down the ARIN mailing lists you'll discover some spine chilling
> > stupidity as to the organizations understanding of resource holding.]
> >
>
> AFRINIC is a company limited by guarantee. From the companies act in
> Mauritius:
> https://www.mcci.org/media/35749/the-companies-act-2001.pdf
> my understanding is that annual reporting requirements are primarily the
> total indebtedness, members and directors.  This is insufficient for an
> organization that can impact over 1 billion people.
>
> ARIN serves two countries, so may not have the same challenges as other
> RIRs. Have not looked at the legal registration status of LACNIC, it
> does serve many countries and appears to have done so well. APNIC is
> registered in Brisbane, Australia though was initially located in Japan
> and was moved for cost reasons:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNIC#History
> APNIC has both a non-profit corporation and a public company limited by
> guarantee:
> https://www.apnic.net/about-apnic/transparency/
>
> RIPE NCC is an association under dutch law:
>
> https://business.gov.nl/running-your-business/legal-forms-and-governance/association/
>
> This has good status for tax obligations, and requires that directors
> operate it in compliance with the stated objectives:
>
> https://business.gov.nl/running-your-business/legal-forms-and-governance/liability-of-a-director-or-committee-member/
>
> One of the challenges RIPE NCC may face is compliance with sanctions:
> https://trust.ripe.net/legal-compliance/
>
> If one considers IP addresses useful in government operations, this may
> have implications for national sovreignity.  As an example the ITU has
> been involved in regulating the use of space internet services:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#Iranian_complaint_about_Starlink
> The ITU is not the most efficient organization (the multi stakeholder
> internet model is better), but the ITU is not subject solely to the laws
> of the country it is registered in.
>
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