Cover Letter for LACNIC

Santiago de Chile, August 26, 1999

Esther Dyson
Chair, ICANN Interim Board

Dear Ms Dyson,

We have pleasure in submitting the attached LACNIC Creation Agreement Draft to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The agreement document was drafted by the following entities: AHCIET, CABASE, CGIBR, ECOMLAC, ENRED and NIC-Mx (we append its descriptions), which represent the different stakeholders related to Internet in our region: academics, ISPs, carriers, NGOs and National Registries. After several preparatory meetings, we agree to undertake the creation of a Regional IP Registry (RIR).

We understand that the creation of this RIR will foster the development of Internet in our region. It will act in accordance with Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) needs and will be organized on ethics, democratic and openness principles with a sound technical basis.

There are a number of fundamental points that we would like to draw to ICANN's attention:

  • By this time, an Interim Board (IB) has been appointed. The main IB's goals are to draft the LACNIC's bylaws, to establish policies of IP address space administration in LAC in accordance with present RIR's practices and to call for an initial assembly no later than April 2000,
  • The Interim Board is establishing a Technical Committee (TC) in order to develop technical Policies. The TC will be in charge of organizing and supervising the interim operation. In the same way the IB will create working groups that will support the creation process.
  • LACNIC will have open and clear procedures for the participation of the different stakeholders of the region. To accomplish this issue we will keep and promote our present space of participation (Web site, discussion lists, meetings, etc) in order to receive proposals, opinions and ideas that enrich the definition of this organization.
  • LACNIC Creation Agreement establishes an organization based on membership.
  • For the initial operation, LACNIC will take advantage of the infrastructure of the already operating national IP registries, CG-Br and NIC-Mx. We would like to clarify that the administration of LAC's IP address space will be done in a unified way,
  • The document proposes a step-by-step transition process. To accomplish this, the LACNIC is developing a transition plan that includes a close collaboration with ARIN.

We are submitting only a draft of the LACNIC Creation Agreement which we have sent to the existing RIRs to obtain comments and recommendations so as to finalize it. 

According to the resolutions approved by the ICANN Board during the Santiago Meeting about encouraging the ASO Council to involve representatives of new registries in the activities of the ASO as observers, we ask to integrate three observers to ASO Council.

In conclusion, we would like to formalize to ICANN and the other existing Regional Registries our status of emerging RIR with an Interim Board working to establish the Latin American and Caribbean IP Address Regional Registry and asking for the inclusion of three observers in the ASO Council. Finally, we want to thank the support given by APNIC, ARIN, RIPE and ICANN Board during our formation process.

Submitted by LACNIC Interim Board

AHCIET, Raimundo Beca, rbeca@ctc.cl 
CABASE, Jorge Plano, jplano@quprum.com.ar 
CG-Br, Jose Luiz Ribeiro, jribeirofilho@nc-rj.rnp.br 
ECOMLAC, Fabio Marinho, fmarinho@ibp.inet.net 
ENRED, Julian Dunayevich, julian@esc.edu.ar ICANN Board Contact 
NIC-Mx, German Valdez, gvaldez@nic.mx

Cc: CEOs of APNIC, ARIN, RIPE

CHK_LACNIC