Symbolic Permanent Online Parliament

[RasmusTenbergen]

Dear members of the "core group" of the "Symbolic Permanent Online Parliament (SPOP)" initiative and friends of the WPE,

as part of the SPOS initiative (description on: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1309), we created the following "core group":


Al-Jawazneh, Shakeeb, Jordan
Alshabib, Hussain, Bahrain
Apisay, Eveline, Cameroon
Behmana, Dana, Latvia
Chandola, Raj, India/Oman
Coeurnelle, Didier, Belgium
Feddah, Rashad, Jordan
Galvez, Xondra, Venezuela
Garbutt, Tim, UK
Hafeetz, Zeeshan, Pakistan
Heo, Eunsun, South Korea
Idrees, Mohammed, Ahmed, Sudan
Iheanacho, George, Nigeria/Indonesia
Jonathas, Noel, Haiti
Johnston, James, Canada
Junge, Guido, Germany/Switzerland
Kennous, Soufiane, Morocco
Khan, Shoaib, India
Kostyo, Ken, USA/Netherlands
Kyrieleis, Fabian, Germany
Mardsen, Joel, USA/Spain
Milosevic, Borko, Serbia
Mionki, Judy, Kenia
Mohammed, Fatima, Sudan
Nienaber, Shanna, South Africa
Nohe, Filip, Germany
Odei, Ernest Asiedu, Ghana
Onuora-Oguno, Azubike, Nigeria
Patshikashvili, Ana, Georgia
Queiroz, Rodolfo, Brazil
Rebello, Leo, India
Sadri, James, UK/Syria
Sim, Sang Won, South Korea
Shaib, Abdelkhalig, Sudan
Shumbulo, Ephrem Dawit, Ethiopia
Stenborg, Jan Mikael, Sweden
Talgar, Ronin, Australia
Tchamo, Nelson, Mozambique
Tenbergen, Rasmus, Germany (Organizer)
Upreti, Nirmal Kumar, Nepal
Van Heerden, Frans, South Africa
Wiah, Tobias, Liberia
Wheeler, Rob, USA


This is not necessarily the final list, apologies if I forgot someone, if you want to be on the list please let me know. I also expect that some of this list will not be part of the core team because they will set other priorities, but I think this is a very good group to start the project.


What are the next steps?

1. Say if you want to be in or out

If you are listed, but do not want to be listed or vice versa, please let me know. If you are listed and that is ok, you can directly proceed to step 2:

2. Fix a date for the first online meetings and confrim participation

We should take some time to prepare the first meeting(s) to make them successful. My proposal is to have quarterly online meetings oo


every second Saturday of the quarter from

noon GMT- 4pm GMT

starting with

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

and then

Saturday, Oktober 10th, 2009, etc

If you think, this is not a good timing, please let me know. If you can or cannot make July 11th, noon GMT, please tell me also. I need confirmations from you to see whether the date is good and I will give you a final confirmation of the date in early May.

You can do the confirmation here in this forum or send me an email and I will add you as confirmed.

3. Send a photo and a short text and/or links about you

To make the SPOP initiative interesting to the public, we will try to create a nice section on the WPE website with photos and short texts about you, please give us input.

4. Start to prepare the first session

During the fisrt session we might discuss:

- the general WPE project
- the general plan for the SPOP initiative ( http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1309 and http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1316)
- resolutions by WPE and others on important political issues (example: ISFiT 2009 on Sudan: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1321)
- work division inside and outside working groups ( http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1282)
- other aspects you want to discuss

You can use this forum and the main website (www.world-parliament.org) to comment on these issues and to propose agenda items.

I am looking forward to working together with you for the success of this project, best wishes,

Rasmus Tenbergen

[RasmusTenbergen]

First confirmations for July 11th:


Tobias, Filip, Ronin, Didier, Zeeshan, Rasmus

[Alfredo Novela]

Alfredo Novela, Mozambique

[RasmusTenbergen]

Preparation of first SPOP meeting

The following aspects should be prepared for the first SPOP meeting on July 11th. You can use this forum to discuss it, organize the work, announce what you want to do etc.:

- comment on SPOP plans in this forum
- get confirmation from everybody on participation on July 11th
- get personal info and photo from everybody and prepare online presentation of SPOP
- prepare example resolution(s), see for example: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1321
- get candidates willing to be leaders of working groups or other important aspects, see: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1282
- prepare to do list for second meeting in october
- prepare list of agenda items for october
- prepare possible decisions on SPOP procedure, for example phase 7 in: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1316
- prepare small real life meeting around July 11th at different places around the world and announce them on the website. I will invite people who can make it to Germany to come to my place on July 11th, so that we can do the preparation, conduct, and debriefing together and meet in person (please let me know if you are interested in coming). I hope that a few others will be able to do somthing similar in Ghana or wherever you are. You can announce this on the email list or on our websites if you want to do something in this direction.

[robineee]

Dear Rasmus and friends,

Thank you for your suggestions in regards to the WPE SPOP process. I think that we need to think most carefully about how we are going to do this. If we are going to have a four hour meeting in July then we need to fix some of the structural problems with the WPE process and infrastructure well before then and get as many people from the Core Group actively participating as possible.

So, here is what I would suggest in regards to this. You either need to turn over the whole WPE voting site to the SPOP or you need to create a special web section for the SPOP. We then need to agree on a quorum and percentage before any motions are officially passed. I would suggest that at least 60% of the Core Group needs to vote in order to reach a quorum and then at least 2/3rds of those that vote on a proposal need to vote Yes in order to pass a new proposal or motion. We may want to reduce this to 60% or less if we have a hard time reaching agreements in a timely manner.

I count 43 Core Group members. If this is accurate then it would take 26 people voting to make a quorum. And then 2/3rds of those voting during a given time period would have to vote yes for the proposal to pass. So, if say 30 people voted 20 would have to vote Yes (which is actually not quite half of all of the Core Group members); however if 36 voted then we would need 24 to vote Yes, again only slightly more than half of the total Core Group (which thus ought to be doable).

Second, I would suggest and make a motion that we get rid of the delegated voting process and only count people that actually vote themselves on motions. This way we will get accurate vote counts and it will be easy to understand how many people have voted for and against specific proposals.

Third, we need to discuss and then fix the Discussion Forum so that it is obvious as to what is listed under each discussion topic; is easy to navigate; and we can have serious discussions about competing proposals; etc. And so that it can be used to ensure that we proceed with organizational development matters in an effective, organized, and purposeful manner.

As it is now the only way I can find and follow discussion processes is to go to the links that Rasmus sends us. But the Web Forum should be intuitive and easy to use without needing a links index page. We should be able to open a SPOP Forum web page and find out what the Core Group is currently discussing and voting on; an archive of past decisions that have been made; future plans; etc. all clearly labeled and categorized so that it is easy to find and follow.

Also we need to agree that we will only consider actionable, legislative types of proposals AND procedural motions that are needed to run the SPOP and organize the WPE. Any other motions or proposals (such as dealing with philosophical questions, awareness raising, etc.) should be entered in a relevant section of the Discussion Forum instead.

All of these things (mentioned above) should be discussed and taken care of before the July meeting. And we should have developed a process by then such that most of those in the Core Group are already participating in the discussions and voting. At that point we will then know that we are ready for a 4 hour meeting and to discuss proposals dealing with substantive matters or issue areas.

We will also then be ready to develop an organizational development or strategy plan for how we can first get hundreds, then thousands, and then tens of thousands of people to participate in the voting – which should be one of the primary topics of discussion during a July meeting.

I hope that these suggestions are helpful; and that you will guide us, Rasmus, in discussing and following through on them in an effective and truly participatory process and manner. I look forward to your response Rasmus and to the responses from everyone else as well.

Rob Wheeler

[RasmusTenbergen]

Dear Rob and friends,

I agree with you on many points, for example:

- the more we do before July 11th, the better (our monthly chat sessions can be one element to organize this)
- your second suggestion is good and part of the plan anyway: the SPOP should have its own decision-making mechanism, if the WPE General Assembly wants to influence it, they can use the normal voting mechanism
- the SPOP should decide in how far they ewant to use delegated voting at which point (you know I am a fan of delegated voting, but we cannot start the SPOP with it and should find a good moment after preparation to introduce it (if at all), the same applies to phase 7
- we need a WPE 2.0, both main site and forum, those who want to help can do that on the www.globaldemo.org site in general and in the WPE and WPE 2.0 group in particular.

What we need most in my opinion is that people care about WPE and accept the responsibility for a certain part of its development, if you ask: what can I do, you can check the link: "50 ways to help the WPE" on: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1333.

I think Rob your email gives an example and I thank you for that and I am grateful for the things you have done for WPE, also others like James and Filip on technology, Borko and Fabian on General organization, Ernest, Tobias, Azubike and others on WPE Africa, Tim on fundraising, Rashad and Nelson on real-life meetings, Guido and Klaus on legal structure, Mikael, Zeeshan, Yogesh and Milan on voting and many others, I am sorry if I did not mention your name. It would be great, if some of you could accept even more responsibility and say; ok I am willing to be a leader on this aspect, this would help us a lot to do the preparation for July 11th.


I also agree there are many shortcomings in the project, but this should not prevent us from doing what we can already do now to make it a success.

Thanks again, best wishes,

Rasmus

[waldnern]

I also wish to be part of the Core Group of the Symbolic Permanent Online Parliament (SPOP).

Waldner, Nolan, Canada

Please let me know if more information in requested.

[RasmusTenbergen]

more confirmations for july 11th:

Soufiane, Judy, Shakeeb, Mehman, Rashad

[RasmusTenbergen]

new confirmations:

13 Hans, 14 Fabian, 15 Tim, 16 James j., 17 Raimuns

[RasmusTenbergen]

maybe attending (facebook reply):

Raj, Tamara, Bruce, Giovani, Eveline, Sarabjit, Ahmet, Taghi, Danial, Dovlet

[yournet]

We will have a small meeting in Ghana.
I affirm my support.

[RasmusTenbergen]

WPE SPOP

First meeting, July 11th, 2009

Draft Agenda


1.Welcome and confirmation of agenda
2.Introductions (opportunity to post a link with personal information: personal website, profile in online community (WPE, globaldemo, facebook etc.) for those who want to do it)
3.What do we want the WPE SPOP initiative to be? Discussion and decision on draft document #1
4.What do we want the SPOP to decide? Already today or during second meeting in October? Possible resolutions on policies and conflicts:
1.Creation of a World Parliament
2.General questions of the international system
3.Economic crisis
4.Climate change
5.Poverty
6.Human rights
7.Non-proliferation
8.Health
9.Wars
10.Terrorism
11.Sudan
12.Middle East
13.Kosovo
14.Iran
15.North Korea
16.Other issues
5.What are the next activities for the WPE SPOP? Discussion and decision on draft agenda for second meeting on October 10th, 2009, see draft document #2
6.What are the next formal steps for the WPE SPOP? Discussion and decision on draft document #3, election of comission to check delegated votes, if decided
7.Work division: who does what? See 50 ways to help the WPE on: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1333, objective: all SPOP members join at least one WPE working group (see: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1282), we get a person responsible for all major working groups and agenda items, ideally every SPOP responsible for something
8.Any other business




Draft document #1:

What is the “World Parliament Experiment Symbolic Permanent Online Parliament Initiative“ (WPE SPOP)?

We, the members of the WPE SPOP initiative believe that the world needs a parliament, directly elected by the people of the world based on one person, one vote and that we can create this institution from below. We therefore create the WPE SPOP initiative to show that it is possible.

We want to be humble and ambitious at the same time:

Humble: we know we are in the very beginning, we do not represent many at this time, in fact we do not claim to represent anybody who has not given explicit support to our initiative. We know this may look ridiculous or utopian to some, but we think that it requires courage to accept this and start the process because of its importance.

Ambitious: we believe that this project or a similar one has the potential to be supported by many, eventually even by the majority of the world population. The legitimacy of our claims depend „just“ on the number of individual supporters.

For our decisions we use standard democratic decision-making procedures during the meetings and the mechanism on www.world-parliament.org to confirm decisions. SPOP decisions are valid if they are presented as a “future vote“ on www.world-parliament.org and get a majority.

We support the plan for the WPE SPOP initiative on: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1327.

We reaffirm the decision of the WPE 2008 meeting in Bonn/Germany (http://www.tgde.org/wpe08/) to support the 10 theses mentioned below:


1. The global democratic deficit is one of the main problems of international politics;
2. The creation of a World Parliament would be an important step on the way to apprehend global problems;
3. The four scenarios of Strauss (2005) to create a World Parliament (amendment of the UN Charter, a subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly, elections organized by civil society, and an interstate treaty process) are all desirable;
4. Elections organized by civil society posses the best possibility of success;
5. This possibility of success can be additionally increased if the process starts with a provisional electronic parliament on the internet;
6. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should give its electors the possibility to change many aspect (content, procedures, representatives) at any time, if there is enough support for a proposal based on “one person, one vote”, but that there should also be some basic rules which cannot be changed without a special procedure;
7. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should give its electors the possibility to decide on how far they want to influence the decision-making process directly and in how far they want to delegate their vote to representatives;
8. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should from the very beginning, even with little support, claim to be a model for a global institution, but it should be clear in every phase of the project that representation and legitimacy in a narrow sense can only be claimed for the participants of the project;
9. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should, at a later time” when the WP will be settled already, even with little support, try to influence real political processes;
10. The campaign for the creation of a World Parliament depends to a large degree on the number of individual supporters. It should therefore put a main focus on this aspect.

(Taken from “Towards a World Parliament: A Summary of the Debate and a Proposal for an Electronic World Parliament on the Internet organized by Civil Society”, Paper presented to the First Virtual Congress of the Community of World Citizens, July 2006, by Rasmus Tenbergen, amended by the WPE 2008 meeting in Germany)

Addendum:

Furthermore, we would like to stress that the issue on democracy needs further discussion, needs to be specified since one thesis defines “democratic deficit” as “one of the main problems of international politics”



Draft document #2:

Draft agenda for second SPOP meeting, October 10th, 2009

1.Welcome and confirmation of agenda
2.Introductions
3.Confirmation of minutes of last meeting
4.Confirmation on delegated votes, if decided
5.Reports on activities since last meeting
6.What do we want the SPOP to decide? Possible resolutions on policies and conflicts:
1.Creation of a World Parliament
2.General questions of the international system
3.Economic crisis
4.Climate change
5.Poverty
6.Human rights
7.Non-proliferation
8.Health
9.Wars
10.Terrorism
11.Sudan
12.Middle East
13.Kosovo
14.Iran
15.North Korea
16.Other issues
7.Next steps: agenda for next meeting, January 9th, 2010
8.Any other business


Draft document #3

Delegated Voting

We start the SPOP project with a general invitation: Everybody can participate and we decide with equal voting rights – one participant, one vote.

To make it a real parliament, however, we plan to move from self-appointment to a system of representation as soon as possible (i.e. with the next meeting in October).

We will give voting rights proportional to the number of supporters members have – one supporter, one vote. One extreme example: If we have 100 parliamentarians, 99 without supporters, one with 101 supporters, this parliamentarian has the majority.

We will elect a comission to organize this process. During the first phase we will accept an informal statement saying „I support xy in the SPOP project“ with a verification mechanism (possibility to contact that person).

There is a connection between this process and the delegated voting system we have on the main website, see description on: http://www.tgde.org/delegation.phtml.

We acknowledge that it would be better in a certain sense to do some steps before we start this system of delegated votes (better explanation, presentation, technology, more money etc.), but we believe that the advantages of a quick start are greater than the disadvantages. We also hope this can be an incentive for parliamentarians to campaign for the project and create critical mass so that the project can grow faster and faster.

[RasmusTenbergen]

Please add your proposals to change the agenda and the documents here.

Example: I propose to add to document #3:

In addition, we should create a possibility to support not a single person, but the project in general, so that we can start a campaign to collect support for the project. Potential supporters will be able to support either the project or a special person, and we can add up both kinds of support to the total number of supporteres for the project.

[RasmusTenbergen]

Hello Ernest and friends,

you asked me about a possible theme for your real life WPE meeting in Ghana.

You guys in Ghana can determine the theme you find most interesting. The ideal structure of the day would be:

1. you have a small meeting in Ghana with some colleagues (and others in different places around the world ) before the online meeting with a theme of your choice. As a result you create a resolution (similar to draft documents #1-3 in the agenda on: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1327) which you later present to the rest of the world in our meeting.
2. the whole group with members from every corner of the world meets online and we discuss your draft resolution (and those of other people from other countries)
3. After the online meeting is finished you can have a real life debriefing meeting in Ghana to discuss the result of your proposal and other aspects and to prepare the next meeting in October.

For me, the online meeting is the main aspect now, but the real life meetings around it should come, the sooner we start the better. It is therefore very much appreciated if you give an example and take the lead to motivate others to do the same. By the way: if you start early, this might make the Ghana section of WPE very powerful, especially if we decide for delegated voting in document #3 on: http://www.tgde.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1327.

Best regards,

Rasmus

[RasmusTenbergen]

Kris Dev, India