[governance] Need to work towards improving the charter (was Re: Procedural rules for amendment of the charter)

[Norbert Bollow]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2019 20:04:19 +0000
"ian.peter at ianpeter.com" <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

> Thanks for making that all clear Norbert. In fact I believe the last 
> attempted charter amendments failed, despite a 70 for, 4 against vote
> - because the number of voters did not equate with the requisite 2/3 
> percentage of "members" . So that area is difficult and best left to
> one side for now.

I agree that charter amendments are difficult.

They may however be less difficult than what the above-cited experience
might indicate: If I remember correctly, the amendment proposal in that
failed attempt was for a relatively minor change. There wasn't much
opposition, but it also wasn't seen as a vitally needed, important
change. I think that the situation might be different for a charter
amendment proposal where for at least some of the proposed changes, it
is broadly agreed that the changes are absolutely needed for important
reasons. Such a proposal would in my view have a much better chance of
passing the threshold of 2/3 positive votes.

In any case I don't agree that the difficulty of charter amendments
implies that it would therefore be wise to avoid thinking about
amending the charter.

If we want a large umbrella caucus where all civil society voices on
Internet governance are welcome, and where on that basis constructive
consensus-seeking discourse takes place, then I believe something needs
to be done to effectively address the problem of the dysfunctional
patterns of interaction which have plagued this community in the past.

When I was a co-coordinator some time ago, I tried to do this on the
basis of the principles and mechanisms and procedures which are
defined in the current charter. That failed pretty dramatically, in
that it actually caused those dysfunctional patterns of interaction to
become worse. Other co-coordinators have largely ignored what the
Charter says on those matters. In that way, they have at least been
able to avoid those counterintentional effects. But the problem remains
unsolved, and I don't think that it can be solved in IGC without
amending its charter.

Greetings,
Norbert