[WSIS CS-Plenary] Proposed Guidelines for CS Plenary

[Vittorio Bertola]

Since they came too late for consideration, I am forwarding my comments on
the proposed Plenary Charter to the plenary list.

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Sorry for being late, I was traveling over the weekend. I hope my comments
can still be useful.

I support Avri's comments. It should be very clear that the Plenary is the
"most sovereign" entity in the CS galaxy, and, as such, is the source of
power which delegates tasks to other groups such as the CSB, C&T or
caucuses themselves. There should be (elsewhere) clear mandates, rights,
limits and duties for each of these entities. Also, the Plenary should
keep the right to overturn decisions and decide whatever it wants,
independently from what the other entities say, as long as some procedural
requirements are met to ensure that Plenary meetings cannot be captured.
CSB etc should not have the power to veto Plenary meetings or decisions
(at most, it can be the opposite).

I would suggest that we foresee a way to run online plenaries when
necessary. I mean, for example, taking decisions on the mailing list, with
sufficient procedural guarantees (e.g. at least 7 days to vote). However,
I understand that we might not be entirely ready for that yet :)

I object to point 5, in that we should not subject ourselves to UN
accreditation processes, that in some cases can be thwarted to deny
accreditation to legitimate entities (I remember a case with a Chinese
organization, not much time ago). Also, I think that more and more
individuals, acting on a personal basis, are getting involved in these
processes, and more will come. Thus I would propose the following
formulation for 5.:

"All individuals who either represent accredited civil society entities,
or subscribe to the online Plenary mailing list, or register in person at
physical Plenary meetings, are members of the Plenary."

If you want, you might add a clause of incompatibility between being part
of delegations from other stakeholders, and having the right to vote. I
must point out that that would exclude plenty of the most active CS
members (me included) that have obtained accreditation through
governmental delegations so to be able to enter closed rooms and inform
the rest of us.

Or, if you want, you might introduce a no-objection procedure by which the
Plenary, by qualified majority, can deny membership to selected
individuals.

Consequently, the quorum should be determined in terms of individual
members of the Plenary.

I think it should be said clearly that the Chairs (in whichever mode of
the Plenary) have the sole and only purpose of running the meeting. They
do not have any representational value, nor can speak on behalf of civil
society. In any case, Chairs should be selected by the Plenary; I am fine
with CSB running a nomination process, not with CSB chairing the Plenary -
unless CSB becomes a sort of elective "executive group" for CS, but I've
seen no proposal to that purpose until now.
-- 
vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
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