[Lnc-business] Fwd: IALP charter questions

[Alicia Mattson]

Forwarding Mr. Neale's reply to the LNC.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Geoffrey Neale <liber8or at austin.rr.com>
Date: Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:06 AM
Subject: RE: IALP charter questions
To: Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com>


Dear Alicia and the entire LNC.



I will try to address your questions as completely as possible, and
hopefully the following narrative will suffice. It is to the best of my
recollection and my limited notes, so may not be totally complete, or
absolutely accurate, but it is IMO functionally accurate.



In November of 2013, I spoke to a group of members of the Partido de la
Libertad Individual (P-Lib - Spain) in Madrid. Unbeknownst to me
beforehand, representatives of the libertarian parties of Italy, Germany
and the UK traveled to Madrid to attend  this event. We met for about an
hour before my speech, and the topic of creating an international group was
discussed. Support was strong, but no formal action was taken at that time.
It was at that meeting that I met Guy Montrose, Chair of the UKLP, for the
first time.



I had many conversations with Guy between then, starting with a marathon
all-nighter in Madrid after the formal dinner, and up to the 2014
Convention.  I would have to say that he really is the most prominent
driving force behind this effort.  I made it clear to him that I had little
time to invest towards anything formal while serving as Chair.



Then my calendar became somewhat clearer. Also, the delegates passed the
resolution calling for me to be appointed to the position of international
representative, and for such an organization to be created.  Since that
time, I have been actively working with others to attempt to live up to the
directive from the delegates.



Guy created a private Facebook group to float the idea of the IALP around
July 1st of 2014, and he started inviting members. Most are representatives
of various libertarian parties, although some members are not “official”,
such as James Lark, Nick Sarwark and Mark Hinkle.



Within one week we received support for the concept from parties in
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Spain and the UK. Since then we have
obtained support from  Albania, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Poland,
Switzerland (two different parties), and Tunisia.  More are in the works.



During the next several months, a small group of individuals started
discussing the actual creation. The four original members of that group
were myself, Guy Montrose, Juan Pina (President  of P-Lib), and Roxana
Pecula, Juan’s wife. Roxana serves in a high capacity in P-Lib, and is from
Romania, where she was very active in libertarianism. One thing that was
made abundantly clear to me was that the USLP needed to be a party to the
organization from the start.  I’m not sure I shared that opinion, but I was
outvoted. I have always seen the USLP involvement to be highly beneficial,
but not essential.



Guy has wanted to do whatever is necessary to get this organization going,
and Juan wanted to create the organization back in August. Juan had the “if
you build it, they will come” attitude.  He was prepared to take on all of
the legal and administrative responsibilities.  I objected until we had the
support of the USLP, and I felt it would not be forthcoming without more
details.



I had several communications with Nick Sarwark, and he made it abundantly
clear to me that he felt the LNC would not support membership without more
details, especially a mission statement.



In the intervening months, we added more people to what Guy calls the IALP
Forward Planning group. We first added Toine Manders, Chair of the
Netherlands LP. Then we included Hilary Hackleman, a Californian LP member
who is married to a Brit, and now lives close to Guy, to serve as secretary
and support. We also added Mark Hinkle, to help in contacting more
international parties, since he has been instrumental in establishing these
contacts since he became Chair.



Guy pushed for establishing a date for our first formal meeting – the
founding meeting. His suggestion was to hold it concurrent with an annual
event in the UK called Freedom Festival.  That is what we have decided to
do. That decision was made in December. Guy has already lined up media. He
is working  with the Freedom Festival organizers, and several events have
already been planned and promoted.  There will be a formal “signing”, but
it’s really for show. In order to sign, the member party must have ratified
the charter beforehand. I think we can assume that this event will occur
with or without the USLP as a founding member, and changing the date or
venue is not feasible.



Since this required organizational and event planning, Nancy Neale was
added to the group to assist with the conference logistics.



I was asked to take the lead on creating a Charter, because I have always
been the biggest proponent of doing so. Since the earliest draft, we have
included more international representatives in a review capacity, and the
version you have seen includes the feedback from others, but the support
has been almost unanimous.



The one glaring omission from the Charter is a manifesto, which I prefer to
call a statement of principles.  Some just want to have the entire USLP
platform adopted in its entirety, but that support is very weak, and I
personally oppose that idea. I think such a document must be a
collaborative effort that supports the organization as a whole, and I feel
trying to craft one via emails and Facebook from the beginning just means
the beginning phase may never end. I hope to work out the scope and
requirements of that statement of principle in Bournemouth. Several people
are working on proposals. Once crafted, the entire Assembly can vote for
its inclusion.



I want everyone on the LNC to understand that this formative phase has been
logistically challenging.  We have a large enough time difference (the
group encompasses ten time zones), the fact that most of the working group
is employed, that fixing times to have Skype meetings is tough.  It usually
falls to weekends, and still provides very small windows of opportunity.
On top of that, we have election cycles and other responsibilities that
conflict. If we added many more people to the mix, the challenges would be
overwhelming. Thankfully all of the members of the Forwarad Planning group
speak and write excellent English, or I’d be lost.



The Founding Charter is designed (by me) to be skeletal in nature, and
primarily serves to define the boundaries of the members and the
organization.



One example of this is that I have not specified any of the causes for
expulsion. It would obviously include violating the “manifesto”, which does
not yet exist. I feel the causes can be delineated later.



Another is that I have not mentioned RONR anywhere, for two reasons: I do
not know whether that would be acceptable to a majority of the members. I
know it is used across the globe, but I also know it is not universal.
This is a decision that Members need to decide. Secondly, I have been led
to believe that RONR has not adequately addressed virtual meetings, and
this organization cannot work if we have to meet in person.



I believe that many of the decisions to be made need to be either made by
the Assembly of Members, or delegated to others by them.  There are many
decisions to be made, such as:



Where will the legal entity be created? This will drive the necessary
officers that must be elected, since different legal jurisdictions require
different officer compositions.



Where will the finances be held? There is no reason why this has to be the
same as the legal entity.



Where will the website be hosted? Again, this could be anywhere.



What will be the official reporting currency for financials and such?



I do not have enough understanding of all of the factors involved in these
decisions, but some of the considerations need to be disclosure laws,
whether or not the legal entity can receive political donations from
non-residents, whether or not funds can be disbursed to external political
organizations, etc.



I have only one strong position on the above questions: I prefer that the
US not be where we do the “official” stuff, because our political reporting
laws and restrictions are too onerous compared to many other countries. I
think the risk to the organization and the USLP is much lower if all
financial and organizational activities occur somewhere else. I don’t want
the FEC breathing down our back.



As the US representative to the group, I tried to represent what I felt the
LNC would support, and now I will find out if I was correct. Most of the
feedback from LP rank and file on creating and being a part of the IALP has
been overwhelmingly positive.  I gave a speech about the IALP last night,
and several people asked what they could do to help. All of the negatives
have been about the risk of creating an LP version of the UN that will tell
the USLP what to do, or drain the bank accounts. This Charter represents
the interest of the LP, and the autonomy of all Members.  The only real
risk is that the IALP does something embarrassing, and the USLP can
repudiate the action, and quit.



The risk/reward calculation leans heavily towards reward. The
costs/benefits ratio is overwhelmingly towards benefits. My opinion.



My experiences since 1989 on the LNC have taught me that the LNC can
wordsmith things to death, and it’s not pretty, or efficient. I have no
doubts that some members will want to see more, or worded differently,
etc.  The thing is that I am proposing that the USLP become a member of an
organization that will have no authority over the USLP, that will be trying
to build cooperation and good will between the ever-growing number of
libertarian political parties. There are people already working across
borders without your knowledge or permission in a totally libertarian
manner. There can be more when we have a formal organization to foster and
promote these kinds of activities. We already have dozens of people lining
up to help, and we can’t even take a donation yet. The IALP has got to get
official.



The only obligation is the annual dues, which will be about $140 per year
starting in 2016, and which I predict will never have to be paid by the
LNC, since we intend to sell sponsorships for each country from donors.  If
those are not forthcoming, I intend to pay the US dues myself for the
foreseeable future.



If there is language in the Charter that is a show-stopper, I can try to
see if an amended version can be passed by everyone, but is the entire LNC
going to be able to give me agreed upon amendments soon enough? The mail
ballot has not been floated, and then we need to wait fifteen days, and I
would then still have to get support from those who will have ratified this
Charter. I do not see that being feasible by 3/6/2015, but if that is what
is required, I will give it my best effort.



If there are suggestions on improvements, I can certainly get them in front
of the IALP once it’s formed. Since we cannot be meeting in person very
often, we will be using alternative methods, which will allow for the
Charter to be amended as often as necessary, but the threshold for changing
is very high – 2/3 of the Assembly. Changes will have to be widely
supported, and therefore should be obviously necessary or beneficial.



I have viewed my role as one of ambassador, and I have been crafting a
treaty on behalf of the USLP.  I have sought counsel on several occasions
from our Chair. Now that we have sufficient agreement between the
negotiators, I am presenting it to my Congress for its approval.



This Founding Charter was only distributed about two weeks ago, and we have
official ratification only from Spain.  However, we have confirmation of
acceptability and/or reservations from the UK, Netherlands, Belgium,
France, Switzerland, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Canada
and I’m sure more I am not aware of, because I’m not in possession of that
information. We are also contacting  the parties directly. I include a
partial communication from Luca Fusari, who is a principle in
InterLibertarians as an example of support and endorsement we have received:



Geoff, the second version of the IALP's draft is very good.

Movimento Libertario (Italy) and Liberisti Ticinesi (Switzerland), also as
Interlibertarians co-founders, will send a delegation to Bournemouth for
sign the IALP Charter and participate to the foundation of the IALP.

It's very probable my presence in representation of Movimento
Libertario-Interlibertarians.



There are two things I would like to disclose:



First, the IALP Forward Planning group asked me to serve as its provisional
chair, until we have a formal meeting and a real organization. I will also
be chairing the first meeting.



Second, I will be at that founding meeting regardless.  All of the travel,
lodging, food, etc. is out of my pocket, and I will not be seeking
reimbursement from any party.



To close, I want to get a little personal, so if I offend you, it was not
my intent. I have been the strongest proponent for having a founding
charter.  Most parties are content to create the organization and work the
details out as we go along. I would be perfectly willing to do so also, but
I strongly feel that the LNC members would not endorse or support  that.
Perhaps I’m wrong.  Perhaps you would have passed a resolution to join
without conditions, so long as you could quit.  My experience and the
advice of Nick Sarwark tells me otherwise.



I am trying as hard as I can to NOT be the 800lb gorilla in the room.  In
fact, both Mark Hinkle and myself have been told that no one thinks we are
acting like 800lb gorillas, so stop tiptoeing around.  If there are
preconditions unique to the USLP to ratifying, that  are not concerns to
anyone else, we Americans are going to be acting more like 800lb gorillas.
I really want to avoid that perception.



My personal hope is that we can show libertarians in other countries that
American arrogance and dominance around the world is the reflection of the
wrong Americans in power, and not a characteristic of the American people.
We have to find ways to cooperate, not reasons to isolate ourselves.
Optimism is not required.  Skepticism is fine. Cynicism is
counter-productive. There is an exit plan, and a zero monetary cost period
to see what the IALP can do.  You have little to risk by voting yes to join
the IALP with its Founding Charter as it stands.



Geoffrey Neale



*From:* Alicia Mattson [mailto:agmattson at gmail.com]
*Sent:* Sunday, February 08, 2015 4:33 AM
*To:* lnc-business; Geoffrey Neale
*Subject:* IALP charter questions



Geoff, (cc: LNC)

Before we start a vote on this question, could we get some sort of
background report about the group that put together this IALP charter?

What other LP groups are involved in this effort?

What groups are expected to be founding members of the IALP?



Was this charter the product of a committee with representatives from
various potential member-groups?  If not, how did it come to be?



Have any other groups already approved of it in its current state?  If we
want to request changes, will other groups have to go back and decide
whether to accept our changes because they have already voted?  Nick's
email phrased it as if this is the "finalized" document, though we're just
seeing it for the first time.  Is that an accurate understanding, or is
this a first draft being circulated for feedback?

The meeting that is scheduled for March 5th, is that for further discussion
and development, or is that the date it is proposed to have all the groups
on-board with governing documents ready to go and create the organization?

-Alicia

P.S.  I'll forward your answers to the LNC list.




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