[Mmwg] IGF mechanism 5.0

[Luc Faubert]

"Le difficile c'est d'inventer, là où le souvenir vous retient."
      - André Gide, Journal des Faux-monnayeurs.
 
Thank you to all who've contributed. It's fascinating to see the mechanism evolve and I hope, along with David, that we will see more contributions on the list. There are many people here who have not posted yet and our process would benefit from their input.
 
Here's another try at the mechanism. I have freely pulled together many of our ideas into another iteration. I've taken the liberty of numbering this iteration. It may help us when referring to different iterations.
 
 
+++ IGF Mechanism 5.0
 
Why not do without the Bureau/Steering committee altogether?
 
We could have just 2 parts: the plenary (the decisional body) and the working groups (for consultation and final text elaboration).
 
Plenary
- Composed of entities divided in 2 groups: governments (GOVs) and accredited organizations (ORGs).
- Discusses (but cannot change) resolutions supplied by working groups and votes on their adoption.
- Votes accreditation of new organizations.
- Expected to conduct its business online whenever possible. Online communications will be in English (due to the costs that translating all email would entail).
- One yearly physical meeting is held in a room large enough to seat at least one delegate for each plenary member. When room allows, an equal number of additional delegates from each entity can be present in the room.
- All entities have equal speaking rights.
- Interpretation is available in the 6 UN languages for physical meetings.
 
Working groups
- Open to all (including all plenary entities, except Chair and Secretariat).
- They do all their business online.
- Their job is to agree on votable resolutions that are passed on to the plenary.
- Working group leaders call rough consensus.
- Because working groups must be global by nature, their working language is English.
- All resolutions submitted to the plenary must be made available in all UN languages.
- In case of deadlock, Chair and Secretariat can be brought in together by any WG participant as facilitators.
- All working groups use the same online tools.
 
 
+++  Procedures
 
Bootstrap loader
1. Interim Chair is Nitin Desai and interim Secretariat is Markus Kummer.
2. All UN-recognized governments are members of the plenary.
3. All WSIS-accredited orgs that express the wish to be part of the plenary are accepted "a priori".
4. A plenary vote is held on accreditation of each org in step 3 in order to reconfirm their accreditation.
5. After an open call for nominations, Chair and Secretariat are elected for a 2-year term. Both can be reelected for any number of terms. 
 
Voting
- All voting requires a 2/3 majority within each plenary group (GOVs and ORGs) and both groups must vote the same way.
- For votes on resolutions, if both groups do not vote the same way or a 2/3 majority cannot be obtained within a group, the resolution is returned to the working group for amendment.
- For votes on accreditations, if both groups do not vote the same way, or if a 2/3 majority cannot be obtained within a group, or if accreditation is refused, the organization must wait one year before re-applying for accrediation. 
- For votes on the creation of working groups, the working group is created only if both groups vote for it.
- For votes on working group leaders, voting rounds last until both groups agree on each leader.
 
Accreditation
- Any organization can apply for accreditation.
- Secratariat pre-screens applications for accreditation and provides online plenary with his opinion on validity of each application as a pre-evaluation.
- Before each new physical meeting,  the plenary discusses and electronically votes on accreditation of each new organization.
- Loose accreditation criteria are based on past or perceived future contribution to governance debate.
- Accreditation can be revoked by a plenary vote on a resolution submitted by the working group on procedural issues.
 
Working group creation
- Proposals for working groups are submitted to Chair/Secretariat by interested parties along with their suggestions for co-leaders (one from GOVs and one from ORGs).
- An open call for WG leader nominations is issued by Secretariat.
- Chair-Secretariat can veto creation of ill-defined working groups (irrelevant to IGF mandate, unrealistic scope, scope overlap with existing WGs).
- Plenary votes on working group creation.
- Plenary votes on WG leaders.
 
Default working group
- A working group on procedural issues is created by default.
- Its leaders are the Chair and the Secretariat.
- It is responsible to create votable resolutions on:
   - changes to IGF mechanism,
   - setting the agenda,
   - outline of meeting logistics,
   - software tools to be used by IGF.
 
Chair
- Presides over meetings.
- Reviews and approves proceedings reports submitted by Secretariat.
 
Secretariat
- Prepares Proceedings report.
- Administers web site and public communications of IGF.
- Handles logistics of IGF online and physical meetings.
- Receives nominations.
- Receives applications for accreditation by orgs and proceeds to pre-evaluation.
- Receives applications for the creation of working groups.
 
Chair-Secretariat (together)
- Can be brought in working groups as facilitators.
- Not allowed to participate in working groups except as co-leader of default working group.
- Can veto on creation of working groups prior to Plenary vote.
 
 
Voilà,
 
- Luc Faubert
ISOC Québec
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/mmwg/attachments/20060120/a038c98f/attachment.htm