Summary

  • AFRINIC says its Board constituted the five-member Appeal Committee on 28 August 2026, with appointments effective immediately and terms running until 31 December 2026.
  • The committee reviews whether the PDWG Chairs followed the Policy Development Process; it does not decide whether a proposal should have consensus and cannot substitute itself for the PDWG or the Chairs.
  • BTW recommends a process-only public case clock covering filing, validation, conflicts, quorum, milestones, report publication, remedy and closure.

AFRINIC’s constitution announcement establishes the body, but an appointment is not the same evidence as operational readiness. The committee is responsible for disputes arising from the Conflict Resolution provisions of the Policy Development Process. Its five members are Silvio Cabral, a former AFRINIC Director; Sami Salih, a former PDWG Co-Chair; Oluwaseun Ojedeji, an active PDWG participant; Nitin Kelawon Sookun, an NRO NC / ASO AC representative; and Eddy Lareine, a Governance Committee representative. AFRINIC says all appointments took effect immediately and that all five terms run until 31 December 2026.

The procedural threshold is specific. A person who disagrees with action taken by the PDWG Chairs must first discuss the matter with the Chairs or the PDWG. If it remains unresolved, an appeal requires support from three people from the Working Group who participated in the discussions. The filing must be made within two weeks of public knowledge of the decision. The three-supporter filing requirement is separate from quorum: the Terms of Reference set quorum at three committee members, with decisions by majority.

The committee’s jurisdiction is narrow. It reviews the process used by the PDWG Co-Chairs, including possible misapplication or misinterpretation of the Consolidated Policy Manual, irrationality, procedural impropriety, disproportionality, unfair denial of participation, or failure to address objections and concerns. It reports to the Working Group and may direct annulment of the Chairs’ decision only if the PDP was not followed. It does not decide whether a policy proposal should have obtained consensus and cannot replace the PDWG or its Co-Chairs.

As of the 7 September 2026 reporting freeze, the frozen public source set contains appeal-record rows for 2022 and earlier years but no 2026 case row. It also does not publish an intake acknowledgement target, a handling deadline for the committee’s report, a recusal register, a hearing or deliberation timetable, a 2026 meeting calendar, or a cross-term continuity rule. These are limits of the frozen source set, not evidence that an appeal exists, that the committee is inactive, that a member has a conflict, or that AFRINIC has failed to comply with the CPM.

A process-only public case clock would fill an evidence gap without publishing protected material. For each matter, AFRINIC could expose metadata for the decision challenged, the public-knowledge date, the date of prior discussion, the filing deadline, receipt of the filing, validation of the three supporters, conflict disclosures and recusals, quorum, dated review milestones, current status, report publication, remedy and closure. The register could keep submissions, evidence and deliberations private while still showing whether the procedural chain is moving.

The clock should also identify the authority and continuity rule for any matter that remains open when the five terms end on 31 December 2026. The frozen source set does not answer how such a matter would be handled, and this briefing does not predict that any case will cross that boundary.

Sources

  1. https://afrinic.net/constitution-of-the-afrinic-appeal-committee
  2. https://www.afrinic.net/appeal-committee.html
  3. https://www.afrinic.net/assets/pdf/appeals/afrinic-policy-development-appeal-committee-v4-20210823.pdf