Dear Paul,
It was interesting to read your response to the serious concerns raised by
members about the actions of you and other RIR CEO’s in your blatant attempt to
interfere in the rule of law and democratic principles of a sovereign state. It
was interesting, not least, in what it failed to address.
We assume the failure to address the core accusations against you and the other
signatories is due to legal advice received in attempt to not make the legal
situation any worse for the signatories and RIRs. Because of the serious
evidence of interference in Mauritius’ sovereignty, the right place to deal
with the issues will be through the impartial legal process and as such this
letter will not provide a line by line rebuttal of your position in this forum.
Nevertheless, your response below does give an insight into the thinking of the
CEOs of RIR which shreds any pretence of RIR CEOs believing in and defending a
bottom up approach to RIR.
You have doubled down on the insistence that RIR can ask for government
interference. You insist that it is right for an intergovernmental organisation
to nominate directors. You justify this because it’s “Mauritius”.
The natural conclusion of your support for this move, is that if a similar
situation occurred in your region you too would support such an intervention by
a foreign government. For APNIC, that means you would also support governmental
intervention from China, Indonesia, Australia, ASEAN, APEC and so on.
You can’t have it both ways. It is not feasible to take one position for Africa
and another position for other regions. Once you advocate government
interference in one location, you loose legitimacy to protect other regions
from governmental interference.
Your argument is damning and stark. You, and it seems, other RIR CEOs are
ripping up the bottom-up approach in a power grab that removes the rights of
members. Members will not stand for this and if you continue with this
approach, you will have lost the trust placed in you and you need to stop a
side.
For the benefit of total transparency for all members - can you confirm that it
is your final position to advocate for a top-down approach supporting
government interference?
If it isn’t your view, please confirm that all regions should be treated
equally and that members of AFRINIC should have the same right to choose their
own Directors, and not have them imposed by government or intergovernmental
bodies.
To be clear, if your position is to accept that government interference is
acceptable in AFRINIC and therefore other RIR’s, members will expect your
immediate resignation so that members can appoint a CEO that defends the
interest of all members and the bottom-up accountability. We will not accept
government interference in RIRs.
Your email raised a very serious issue that has alarmed members. We have seen a
number of responses to your message over the weekend. We expect, and deserve, a
full clarification on your position as a matter of urgency.
Regards,
NRS Team
---- On Thu, 18 Aug 2022 15:07:01 +0900 Paul Wilson <[email protected]> wrote
---
Dear friends and colleagues,
I do understand the interest by members of the APNIC community in the letter
from the NRO to the government of Mauritius, dated on 12 July. Accordingly, I
provided background and explanation of this action in an APNIC blogpost on 22
July:
https://blog.apnic.net/2022/07/22/why-the-nro-is-defending-afrinic/
As explained in this blogpost, the primary reason for the NRO’s correspondence
was to highlight the risks to the global Internet operations from unintended
consequences of decisions made by the Mauritian courts, in the course of recent
legal proceedings. The letter was a product of the NRO and it expressed the
NRO’s commonly held concerns about the potential for serious damage to
important Internet operations, a matter which is of common concern to all RIRs
and, we believe, of great importance to all RIR communities.
A secondary reason for the correspondence was to express support for AFRINIC’s
previous requests to Mauritius for recognition of its status as an
international organisation. Whether such recognition is granted and what this
process entails under Mauritian law, are matters for the discretion of the
Mauritian Government and for AFRINIC. However it should be noted that LACNIC
has held a similar status for many years in its host country of Uruguay, as one
of numerous organisations in the same category.
Finally, regarding the process for AFRINIC Board appointments, which were not
mentioned in the NRO letter or my blog post: my understanding is that if ANY
Mauritian company becomes unable to complete its usual board appointment or
election process, the Mauritian courts have discretion to appoint board members
in order to allow the company to function.
In AFRINIC’s case, the court was provided with a list of suggested candidate
names, which had been solicited from the ATU (African Telecommunications Union)
as a recognised independent and authoritative body, and along with other names
from other sources (to my understanding). As the court is entirely free to
accept or reject any of these candidates, this does not in any way represent an
appointment BY the ATU. Under the current circumstances this appears to be an
entirely legitimate process to enable the AFRINIC board to function and convene
elections in accordance with their by-laws.
I hope that these answers are useful and informative to interested parties.
Paul.
Paul Wilson, Director-General, APNIC mailto:[email protected]
http://www.apnic.net @apnicdg
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