Statutes

Revised on February 28, 2001

COMIR is a network of NGOs and institutes working in the field of ethnic relations and minority rights in the OSCE region. COMIR is concerned with the evaluation and further development of universal, regional, bilateral and national standards that may assist in consolidating democratic governance on the basis of ethnic diversity and human rights. The consortium was founded in February 2000 in Budapest.

The Steering Committee is the governing body of the consortium. The Steering Committee (SC) consists of one representative from each member organization. The SC decides on membership issues and strategic questions. The SC takes a major role in fundraising for developing COMIR projects and resources. Annually, the SC has two meetings, one of which might be virtual. The SC makes decisions on a simple majority basis.

COMIR activities are coordinated by the Executive Secretariat (ES). The ES is responsible for daily secretarial work (correspondence, documentation, development, communication, etc), preparation of documents, coordination of web development, circulation of information, and project development.

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board includes international experts who can advise COMIR on questions related to strategy, policy decisions, and provide quality control and review.

Membership

Membership in COMIR is upon invitation only. Inquiries should be directed at the Secretariat at comirnews@yahoogroups.com.

Membership duties:

• Within the scope of specific abilities and skills, the member organizations will actively contribute to the development of COMIR resources and joint projects.
• The member organizations will regularly notify other members about major upgrades on their homepages. This is to assure that COMIR remains up-to-date.
• Where possible, the member organizations will apply the COMIR recommendations regarding structure of the database, document format and meta-information in the document to facilitate access of users and to ensure clear identification of the location, source and authorship of documents.
• To promote the mission of COMIR and to emphasize association with COMIR, the member organizations will include a page on their web sites with a list of the banners of member organizations, with appropriate hyperlinks.
• The member organizations will designate a staff member who is to be responsible for contact to COMIR in order to accomplish the above-mentioned stipulations.

Membership benefits:

• Special sections of member organizations' web sites will be monitored by a common COMIR search-engine, accessible from each member's web site.
• Member organizations will be given full and free access to all COMIR services.
• Member organizations will be mentioned as "member organizations" on the web sites of all members.
• Member organizations are encouraged to propose valuable sites and organizations worth including in COMIR services.

A membership may be cancelled by written request from a member or if a member does not fulfill the duties of membership.