[IRP] RESPONSE REQUIRED: Revising the Charter

[Lisa Horner]

Hi all

Thanks for all of the comments so far about our immediate revisions of the Charter.  From these comments two things have emerged as needing immediate attention.  First of all, I will try to clarify what the "Punchy Working Group" is and what they are doing. Secondly, we need to decide how much work we want to do to the Charter before we use it in external consultations. I have outlined two possibilities at the bottom of the email.  Please could everyone say which option they prefer by this SUNDAY 17TH OCTOBER.

a) The Punchy Working Group

The group formed in Vilnius after our internal meeting in the canteen.  It is informally being led by Brett, and includes Dixie, Shaila, Henrik, Karmen and Carlos.  The group is working to draft a flyer/short document to use as an advocacy and campaigning tool. This is a separate document to the main Charter.  People wanted to work on it as they feel they need an advocacy and mobilising tool right now, rather than having to wait for the longer Charter process.  They also wanted something that was shorter and more accessible than the longer, more academic and comprehensive Charter.

The individual members of the group have brainstormed a list of key principles that they think embody the essence and spirit of the Charter.  They are now working to refine this list, and are due to send a draft to the coalition in the coming weeks.  We can then discuss and edit together.   The idea is to produce something like the Brazilian principles.  Once we've all agreed on a version, the plan is for a designer to make it look good, and then it will be ready for people to use in their advocacy work.

The proposed "Punchy" advocacy document will be sent to the mailing list in the next couple of weeks and we will have an in-depth discussion about this document then.

b) The Charter

At Vilnius it was agreed that some work needs to be done to the main Charter before the external consultation.  However since then there have been some differences in opinion about how much work the Charter needs.

Our original plan (which I sent around last week) would give us about two weeks from now to rectify any mistakes in the Charter and, refine some of the language and build in Tapani's new and improved preamble.  Dixie would undertake this work, based on comments so far, and would send a revised version round for comments.

However, there is a feeling among some of us that more work is needed to go through the whole Charter together to make it more concise, clear and inspiring. I would like to stress that this would not be an attempt to rewrite the Charter. We already have a very good Charter! The aim would be to work with what we already have; the substantive content would not change (except for where there are mistakes) but what content we already have would be made more streamlined and consistent.

So let's make a final decision now. I have put the two options we have below (we can refine the details once we've broadly agreed on one or the other).  PLEASE SAY WHETHER YOU WOULD PREFER OPTION 1 OR 2 BY SUNDAY 17TH OCT  - we will go with the majority on this.  Either are possible and can work.  But please take into consideration whether you personally will have time to participate in the process and can commit to it.

Please respond...we can't decide how to go forwards with this if you don't!

Thanks and all the best,
Lisa

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The options:

1) The original proposed plan

Main Charter:
Coalition members submit comments to Dixie about serious concerns that you think need to be addressed in the text.
Dixie revises text and sends to coalition for comments.
Discussion, and final text produced. (original deadline we set was 31 October).
External consultation begins in November, and internal discussion within the coalition runs in parallel.
Final version 2.0 produced in time for IGF 2011.

Punchy flyer:
Punchy group drafts separate flyer for coalition to review.

2) Alternative plan

Main Charter:
Dixie revises text according to comments already received since Vilnius.
Coalition reviews the Charter in depth.  This is likely to take the form of discussing one section per week on the list, seeing where the text can be made more inspiring.  We could organise a conference call at the end of each week to agree final language.
We produce version 1.1 by end of December, and begin external consultation in January 2011.
Final version 2.0 produced in time for IGF 2011.

Punchy flyer
Work continues to produce separate document as before.

Note: With either option, we will still be sticking to our original objectives of "applying" existing rights standards to the Internet.  This means that we have to be careful with our language and to make sure that we don't contradict or undermine rights standards.  We've made progress with the work of the expert group, and don't want to go backwards.  As has already been pointed out, we're not trying to produce a consensus document, but rather to apply existing rights standards to the Internet.  If we can't agree on language, we will have to agree to compromise and/or discuss further during the external consultation.



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___________________________________________________________
Lisa Horner
Head of Research & Policy  Global Partners and Associates
338 City Road, London, EC1V 2PY, UK
Office: + 44 207 239 8251     Mobile: +44 7867 795859
LisaH at global-partners.co.uk<mailto:lisah at global-partners.co.uk>  www.global-partners.co.uk<http://www.global-partners.co.uk/>


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