[governance] charter 1.5

[Parminder]

>yes, that is the historical page for the IGC as a WSIS CS committee.  I
have looked at that and avoided changing it until after the charter is
approved.



 

In fact, since history is one of the most important constituents of meaning,
it may be appropriate to leave the historical fact of how IGC came to be, in
the opening part of the charter.

 

Though to fit the purpose of the charter, it may have to be changed a bit.
Something like,

 

IGC was formed by The IGC comprises individual and organizational civil
society
actors who came together in the context of the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS) to
promote global public interest objectives in Internet governance policy
making. 

 

I propose that this be the opening line of the charter even before the
vision, putting the issue in perspective.

 

Thanks. Parminder 

________________________________________________

Parminder Jeet Singh

IT for Change, Bangalore

Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 

91-80-26654134

 <http://www.itforchange.net/> www.ITforChange.net 

  _____  

From: Avri Doria [mailto:avri at psg.com] 
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 11:56 PM
To: Parminder
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] charter 1.5

 

Hi,

 

On 22 jul 2006, at 12.17, Parminder wrote:





>in my understanding of the notion of intentionality, only people can have
intentions.  if an abstract entity like a caucus has an intention it is only
because its >membership has one.

 

I think, organizations have intentions as well, which is more than or
different from the sum of (independent) intentions of its constituents. I
think this is very basic to definition, theory etc of organizations. We can
of course speak of organizations seeking to, having the intention, working
towards etc etc without having to speak of its members having the intention
etc... In fact, often my own independent intentions may not be exactly the
same as that of the organization that I may constitute, IGC, in this case.

 

True, but in the sense of a charter, we are agreeing on a statement that the
members specifically intend.



 

I saw the 'membership' clause in the draft closely, and I agreed with this
clause as it stand, though I, and some others who have argued on this list,
do have views about how groups/ organizations/ interest groups based
stakeholder-ship (going beyond a strict construction implied in
'membership') of IGC should be emphasized. And it is emphasized in the
mission of the present draft, and in some parts of the tasks. 

 

And it also flows from the history of the caucus. For example, the webpage
for the IGC list serve mentions that 

 
     This list is for a) public discussion of Internet governance issues,
and b) coordination of the
Internet Governance Caucus (IGC).  The IGC comprises individual and
organizational civil society
actors (emphasis added) that came together in the context of the World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to
promote global public interest objectives in Internet governance policy
making. 

 

yes, that is the historical page for the IGC as a WSIS CS committee.  I have
looked at that and avoided changing it until after the charter is approved.



 
However, I also understand that for many process related issues, some kind
of strict definition of membership aspects is necessary. And that the
membership portion of the draft charter deals with this issue. And that
perhaps it will be too complicated to get into organizational memberships in
this respect. And to that extent, and for that strict purpose of fixing some
necessary processes, it may be necessary to describe "the members of the IGC
are individuals, acting in personal capacity".
 
So the issue of speaking about membership in relation to fixing some
important IGC processes, is not the same as laying out IGC's wider scope,
domain, general constitution, stakeholdership, representative-ness etc,
which I understand it is the intention of all of us to be a inclusive of
what can go in the name of civil society as possible. It is in this sense
that I have problems with mentioning 'membership' in the mission statement. 

 

I understand.  And I realize that my objection may be more pedantic than
political.  so am willing to to go back to  the previous usage, though for
correctness sake, as far as i can tell from  the various dictionary
descriptions of usage i have consulted during this conversation,  caucus, as
committee,  takes a plural form of the verb.  So it would be:

 

          The caucus intend ....

 

I still would like to hear other opinions.

 

 

thanks

a.

 

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