Summary

  • AFRINIC's second consultation on its proposed amended Constitution opened on 4 August and closes on 21 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC; the draft is not operative.
  • Articles 11.4 and 11.5 would preserve, rather than create, the Board's existing power to adopt a number-resource policy it considers necessary and urgent before the ordinary Policy Development Process is completed.
  • The policy must go to the next public policy meeting, and rejection stops later enforcement, but every action taken before rejection remains valid under the text.
  • Open participation, later endorsement and the prospective stop are genuine safeguards; the draft's own rationale says Article 11 has no substantive change.
  • The clauses do not define urgency, require a pre-effect public record or review, set a short sunset, fix the time to endorsement, or provide rollback and restoration after rejection.

Rejection would stop the rule, not rewind the result

AFRINIC's proposed Constitution gives a later policy meeting a veto with a one-way clock.

The normal route in Article 11.3 is public: number-resource policies are discussed and agreed through the Policy Development Process and then ratified by the Board. AFRINIC's current policy page describes mailing-list debate, a public meeting, at least four weeks of discussion, a last call of at least two weeks and Board confirmation that the process was followed.

Article 11.4 is the exception. It says the Board may adopt a policy for managing Internet number resources when it considers the measure necessary and urgent. Article 11.5 then requires endorsement at the next public policy meeting. If endorsement fails, the policy may no longer be enforced or implemented.

Then comes the sentence that determines who carries the risk: action taken before non-endorsement “shall remain valid”. Rejection closes the gate for the future but does not bring back what passed through it.

This is not a new 2026 invention. The operative 2020 Constitution already contains the same structure. The second draft retains it, and the drafting committee's rationale says Article 11 has no substantive changes beyond editorial and consequential amendments. The dated news is that a reform written after years of governance crisis leaves this first-effect power intact.

Ordinary process is detailed; the exception is not

The contrast is sharp. AFRINIC's ordinary PDP identifies who may participate, where discussion occurs, when a proposal reaches a public meeting, how last call works and how the Board and staff act after consensus. The Consolidated Policy Manual also provides an appeal route for some chair decisions when the PDP was not followed.

Articles 11.4 and 11.5 supply none of that detail for the emergency decision itself. They do not define “necessary” or “urgent”. They do not require a published statement of the problem, an evidence index, an impact assessment, recorded reasons, dissent or an independent decision before staff act. They name the next public policy meeting but no fixed number of days.

Nor do they impose a short automatic expiry, limit an emergency policy to reversible measures or say that an appeal stays implementation. Article 11.5 does not itself specify how the Internet Community endorses or rejects: consensus test, voting class, threshold, quorum and abstentions are unstated in these clauses.

The draft broadens the defined Internet Community to interested people and legal entities inside or outside the service region. That is a real participation safeguard. It still does not answer how a later collective decision repairs an earlier individual loss.

Sources

Further reading