Dear APNIC Community Members

 

On Monday, 7 April, APNIC Members and the community gathered online to
discuss two proposed amendments to the APNIC By-laws:

 

1.      Extending the terms of Executive Council (EC) members from two to
three years.
2.      Introducing term limits of three terms for EC members.

 

Please see a summary of the feedback received during the session below.  

 

The EC is keen to hear more from APNIC Members and the community and
encourages you to share your feedback here on APNIC-Talk. The deadline to
provide your feedback is 18 April 2025.

 

After all the feedback is considered, and final wording is completed, the EC
intends to put the proposed by-law reforms to a Member vote at APNIC 60 in
September 2025.

More information on the final proposals, including how to vote, will be
published prior to APNIC 60.

 

Feedback and questions on the proposals

 

This is a sample of the feedback and questions received in the online
community consultation session held on Monday, 7 April 2025 at 14:00 (UTC
+10). The full recording and transcript is available at
https://bylaws.apnic.net.

 

Feedback summary

 

There was general support for the proposals from those who provided feedback
during the online consultation session.

 

One community member noted that the community is already quite familiar with
the current mechanism and that this proposal makes simple things even more
complicated.

 

The EC were also asked by a community member to provide their comments on
the proposals. Kenny Huang, Roopinder Singh Perhar, and Achie Atienza spoke
in favour of the proposals.

 

1. Question: Can EC members be re-elected after three terms?

 

Secretariat answer: The proposal is presented as an absolute limit of three
terms, meaning an EC member could not be re-elected after serving three
terms. We encourage the community to provide feedback on this.

 

2. Question: How will the reforms apply to the current EC members?

 

Secretariat answer: This has not been determined yet. How they will be
implemented will be considered after receiving the community's feedback.

 

We note that the change in term lengths will require a transitional period.

 

We encourage you to provide your feedback on how the reforms might be
applied to the current EC members.

 

Community feedback:

 

*       The EC Members should move to three-year terms if they are
re-elected, provided they haven't been in the seat for something close to
nine-years.
*       If the candidate has been an EC member for 10 years (five terms),
then they should not be allowed to renominate. If they have been on the EC
for less time, they can be re-elected for three years, but we will need to
decide how we count the number of terms, or if it's per year or per term.
*       One approach is to look at the existing amount of years that each EC
member has currently served for and use that as a way to determine whether
or not they stand for re-election, to align with nine years.

 

3. Question: LACNIC and RIPE NCC do not have term limits. Is there a reason
for this different structure?

 

Secretariat answer: The Secretariat advised that they were not aware of the
reasons why LACNIC or RIPE NCC do not have term limits, or if it has
previously been considered by their communities.

 

Following the consultation session, it has been confirmed that to the best
of our knowledge the LACNIC and RIPE NCC Members have not formally
considered term limits for their respective board members.

 

4. Question: What is the consultation and reform process?

 

Secretariat answer: The process will involve:

 

1.      Community consultation on the high-level proposals, via feedback
during this webinar and on the APNIC-Talk mailing list by 18 April 2025
2.      EC review of feedback and development of final proposals
3.      Information sessions on final proposals
4.      Member vote

 

Community feedback:

 

I'd like to see separately to this a framework in place as to how we get new
involvement in the community. I think there is a lot of appetite for there
to be kind of a navigable structure. I've seen in the community several
people commenting about getting lost within the kind of APNIC Framework and
how to participate.

 

5. Question: What is the status of the suggested reform to introduce
appointed independent directors?

 

Secretariat answer: The EC discussed this suggestion from Jonathan Brewer
and responded to him, which can be found on the EC correspondence and
feedback page
<https://www.apnic.net/about-apnic/organization/structure/apnic-executive-co
uncil/ec-roles-and-obligations/ec-correspondence-and-feedback>  on the APNIC
website. The EC advised that further consideration was needed, especially
with regard to the potential impact on the EC's structure and processes if
independent directors were introduced.

 

The EC has committed to continuing to consider the proposal.

 

Community feedback:

 

*       As a community member, we definitely think that the APNIC EC Board
does need a bit of diversity. I know that everyone wants it to be diverse,
but we are not seeing that much diversity.

 

Kind regards

 

Jeremy

 

 

        

Jeremy Harrison
General Counsel, APNIC
e:  <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
p: +61 7 3858 3194
 <https://www.apnic.net/> www.apnic.net



 

 

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