Summary

  • AFRINIC constituted its five-member Appeal Committee on 28 August 2026. Every appointment took effect immediately and is listed through 31 December 2026.
  • The date interval is 125 elapsed days, or 126 calendar dates when 28 August and 31 December are both counted. AFRINIC's current Terms of Reference describe the ordinary term as one calendar year from 1 January to 31 December.
  • AFRINIC's public register includes an earlier appeal with minutes in December 2020, another minute in January 2021 and a report published later that month. That proves appeal work can cross a year boundary; it does not prove a continuity failure.
  • No current appeal or late renewal is established. The missing public object is a prospective year-end notice that identifies the next roster and the rule for any unfinished work before all five terms end together.

Five appointments meet one date

The 28 August announcement names a complete committee. Silvio Cabral occupies the former-director profile. Sami Salih is the former PDWG Co-Chair. Oluwaseun Ojedeji is the active PDWG participant. Nitin Kelawon Sookun represents the NRO NC / ASO AC, and Eddy Lareine represents the Governance Committee.

Those different profiles should not be confused with different term clocks. AFRINIC says all appointments were effective immediately and run until 31 December 2026. The current committee page repeats the same end date next to every name.

The calendar is therefore unusually compact. From 28 August to 31 December is a difference of 125 days. Count both the effective date and the last listed date and the committee has 126 calendar dates in its first published 2026 interval.

That arithmetic does not invalidate the appointments. The announcement is explicit about the interval, and a partial first calendar year can be a rational way to align a new body with an annual cycle. The news value lies in the common boundary: no seat carries a later published expiry that would automatically preserve continuity into January.

A calendar year is not twelve months from appointment

The current Version 4 Terms of Reference say committee members hold office for one calendar year, starting on 1 January and ending on 31 December. That formulation attaches the term to the calendar, not to twelve months following each person's appointment.

AFRINIC's own list shows the practical effect. Five appointments beginning late in August do not receive five separate anniversaries in 2027. They converge on the existing annual endpoint.

This is different from asking whether the people were eligible, whether the Board examined conflicts or whether a quorum exists for a particular case. Those are important questions, but they are already the subject of separate coverage. The new evidence changes a narrower field: the date on which the published authority of all five incumbents ends.

A registry can resolve that field in several legitimate ways. It can reappoint the same people, replace some or all of them, or publish another decision supported by the applicable rules. What matters before the boundary is not which option outsiders prefer. It is whether the option, authority and effective time are inspectable before the old terms expire.

AFRINIC's archive shows why rollover is not abstract

The committee page is also a historical register. One entry concerns an appeal against a non-consensus determination on an RPKI AS0 proposal. The page links minutes dated 3, 10 and 17 December 2020, a further minute dated 17 January 2021 and a report published on 21 January 2021.

That sequence is bounded evidence. It shows that public work attached to one appeal can extend from December into January. It does not show who held authority at every step, that anyone lost custody of the record, that a term expired mid-case or that the final report was invalid.

The distinction is necessary because the current public page does not identify a live 2026 appeal. Nor does the new appointment notice say that a case will remain unfinished on 31 December. A historical crossing is a reason to design the handover in advance, not a reason to invent a present dispute.

The filing rule makes the design question practical. AFRINIC's published Conflict Resolution excerpt says an appeal must be submitted within two weeks of public knowledge of the challenged decision and must have the support of three Working Group participants. A chair decision late in December could therefore create a valid filing window that extends into January. That is a calendar example, not evidence that such a decision or filing exists.

The renewal notice should precede the expiry

The public surface already identifies the committee, its mandate and its end date. A year-end continuity notice can finish the chain without disclosing confidential deliberation.

It should identify the authority that made each renewal, reappointment or replacement; the next member and profile attached to each seat; the exact effective time; and the version of the Terms of Reference being applied. At aggregate level, it can say whether unfinished work exists and which published rule governs work that is retained, reassigned or paused. A stable case identifier and record digest can preserve custody without publishing private submissions.

This is not another appointment-and-case checklist. The decision object is the annual changeover itself. Readers should be able to see that the old roster's authority ended, the new roster's authority began and any open record remained attached to a named rule throughout the transition.

Publication timing matters. A notice posted after 31 December can document the transition after the fact, but it cannot give an appellant confidence before the boundary. A prospective notice allows participants to know where a filing will go, who owns the next procedural step and when the new authority becomes effective.

What the dates do not prove

The strongest benign explanation remains fully available. AFRINIC rebuilt a standing committee during the year, aligned all five appointments with the ordinary calendar endpoint and may renew or reconstitute it before January. The shared expiry can make administration simpler and provide one predictable annual accountability date.

No source reviewed here establishes a vacancy, missed deadline, improper appointment, conflicted member, loss of quorum, delayed report or affected network. The absence of a rollover phrase on the reviewed public page is also not proof that no internal procedure, legal rule or operating practice exists.

The conclusion is deliberately smaller. Five different institutional profiles now share one published clock. AFRINIC can turn that concentration into a strength by making the next authority transition visible before it occurs.

Sources