Companion Annex O

Multi-Organization Federation

This annex describes a reference approach for connecting multiple independent organizations while allowing each to retain its own governance authority, policies, evidence stores, and operational autonomy.

Federation enables collaboration without requiring centralized governance ownership.

1. Federation Objectives

• Enable governed collaboration across organizations.
• Preserve local authority and accountability.
• Support traceable cross-domain execution.
• Allow interoperable policy exchange.
• Maintain independent audit capability.

2. Reference Topology

Organization A
 ┌──────────────┐
 │ Runtime A    │
 │ Ledger A     │
 └──────┬───────┘
        │
======== Federation ========
        │
 ┌──────┴───────┐
 │ Runtime B    │
 │ Ledger B     │
 └──────────────┘
Organization B

3. Shared Federation Services

4. Federation Principles

• Each organization remains sovereign over its own runtime.
• Delegated authority should be explicit and time-bounded where appropriate.
• Cross-domain requests should be authenticated and authorized.
• Shared policies should remain versioned and reviewable.
• Evidence provenance should remain traceable across domains.

5. Cross-Organization Workflow

Request
   ↓
Organization A Runtime
   ↓
Delegation Validation
   ↓
Organization B Runtime
   ↓
Decision
   ↓
Independent Ledger Recording

6. Conformance Guidance

Federated implementations should document trust relationships, supported protocols, policy compatibility rules, and audit responsibilities. Each participating organization should retain sufficient records to independently reconstruct its own governance decisions.

Conclusion

This annex demonstrates how CEI concepts can be extended beyond a single organization while preserving governance independence, accountability, and verifiable execution history.

Next: Companion Annex P — Governance Patterns Catalog.