Summary

  • ICP-2, "Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries", is described on ICANN's own page as an Internet Coordination Policy document adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors on 4 June 2001.
  • The Number Resource Organization has convened consultation on revising ICP-2 and describes revision as consensus built inside the RIR system, then submitted to the ICANN Board for final adoption.
  • Three instrument classes went unread in this review, including the criteria text itself, so the decision rule that turns consensus into an adopted revision is not established here.

Two descriptions, two hands

On the page that hosts it, ICP-2 is presented as an ICANN Internet Coordination Policy document, formally titled "Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries", and as having been formally adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors on 4 June 2001 (ICP-2 page). The same page, on a second retrieval, was summarised as setting out criteria established by the community and recognised by ICANN for the creation of new regional internet registries.

The second document is a Number Resource Organization notice convening consultation on a revision of ICP-2 (NRO consultation notice). As summarised in retrieval, it records that the organisation has conducted consultations on a potential revision, and describes the route in general terms: updates to such policies have historically followed a bottom-up consensus process within the RIR system, which is then submitted to the ICANN Board for final adoption, and the proposed framework follows that pattern.

Placed together, the two descriptions separate the functions. Consensus is assembled inside the system of the five existing registries, convened here by their coordination body, the Number Resource Organization (directory entry). The act described as final adoption is recorded outside that system, by the board of a different organisation.

This is a description of a division of labour, not proof that the division is contested or that it has ever been exercised for a candidate registry. It also is not a finding that the arrangement is irregular. Two institutions can comfortably hold two halves of one procedure. The point is narrower: the half that decides is not the half that convenes.

What the criteria are said to be, and what that does not settle

ICP-2 is characterised as an Internet Coordination Policy, a class of ICANN document maintained for coordination matters rather than for the corporation's own governing instruments. The retrieval summary of the page added a detail worth separating out: the criteria were described as established by the community and recognised by ICANN. That phrasing describes substance originating with operators and recognition originating with the corporation.

What a reader cannot take from either summary is the text. Whether the criteria name the body that recognises a registry, what evidence a candidate registry must produce, whether any threshold or supermajority applies, and whether the criteria themselves state an amendment procedure — all of that lives in the document rather than in the page describing it. None of it was obtained.

The control surface

A network operator reads a registry's continuing ability to allocate addresses as evidence that authority is settled. An applicant reads a published criteria document as the gate it must pass. Both readings are reasonable and both skip a step: the document is published by one body and, on the descriptions obtained here, adopted by another. Where the substantive text and the adopting act sit in separate documentary layers, the criteria read as authoritative because of who published them, while the authority to adopt sits somewhere the reader has not looked.

That gap is not visible in normal use. It becomes visible when a recognition is contested and someone asks which body was competent to decide it.

What was not obtained

Three instrument classes were not obtained in this review, and the partition is stated precisely because the article leans on it.

First, the ICP-2 criteria text. Two provider attempts were spent on it. The first closed on provider capacity unavailable; the second returned a summary that stated direct access to the document text was unavailable through automated tools. Not obtained: the per-criterion text, the document's own definition of a new regional internet registry, any evidentiary standard the criteria impose, and any decision rule inside the criteria.

Second, the NRO consultation notice. One attempt returned a summary only. Not obtained: the notice's publication date, the comment period's opening and closing, the parties invited to comment, any rule for weighing comments, and any stated adoption rule for a revised text.

Third, ICANN Board and Address Supporting Organization records bearing on recognition of regional internet registries. No attempt was spent on this class once the two-attempt limit for non-subject institutional sources was reached. Not obtained: any board resolution recognising a registry, any minutes entry on ICP-2 revision, any Address Supporting Organization record on the question, and any ICANN–NRO or ICANN–ASO relationship instrument.

The arithmetic is deliberately literal: two attempts on the criteria text, one on the consultation notice, none on the adopting institution's records, three attempts in total, three instrument classes unread. Where a later reading of this article encounters a different partition, the description above is the one that matches the retention record.

What follows, and what does not

What follows is a documented asymmetry between proposing and adopting, described by the two institutions involved, with a dated record of what could not be read. What does not follow is any claim about the criteria's content, any claim that a revised text exists, any claim that a revision was submitted or adopted, and any claim about the legal standing of the coordinating body — which is not established here from a founding instrument.

The asymmetry matters most where it is least examined. Recognition decisions are rare, and rarity is exactly the condition under which an unstated procedure survives unchallenged: no one needs to know the rule until the first contested case, and by then the rule is being inferred from practice.

Sources

  • ICANN, ICP-2, Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries: icann.org
  • Number Resource Organization, Consultation on the Revision of ICP-2: nro.net
  • BTW directory record for the Number Resource Organization: btw.media

All three sources were retrieved on 18 October 2026. Both institutional pages were retained as provider-reported summaries; neither was read as verbatim instrument text.