-----Original Message----- Thank you for clarifying. This does not actually state what those 24 months are used for, though. If I may, I'd suggest an alternative wording, based on the existing one that defines the (obsolete) need period for NCC-to-LIR transfers in section 5.0:
«The RIPE NCC approves transfers of allocations to LIRs to meet their needs for a period of up to 24 months.»
(Or perhaps it would be better English to use "that" instead of the first "to"? I'm not a native speaker, so not I'm not sure here.)
No, the first one is better.
Thank you again. Do you know whether or not there are any active efforts in any of those regions to harmonise the periods (in other words change it to 24 months in the APNIC region, or to 12 months in the ARIN region)?
There are no plans or proposals I am aware of to change it back to 12 months in ARIN. There are some discussions of increasing the free pool time horizon from 3 months to a long period, probably 12 months. There have also been proposals (unsuccessful) to raise it to 60 months in the ARIN region. But the main reason that failed was that the 24 month period only went into effect early in 2012, and they want to give it time to function.