[Chapter-delegates] G20 Communique and standards

[Richard Hill]

The communique from the G20 meeting includes the following[1]:

"[We, the G20] encourage the development and use of market- and industry-led
international standards for digitised production, products and services that
are based on the principles of openness, transparency and consensus."

This sounds good, but, as usual, the devil is in the details.

Would a membership organization such as W3C[2] be considered to "open" and
"transparent"?  I suppose so, but where are those terms defined?

And what about the fact that most organizations, including W3C, ICANN, the
RIRs, etc. do make decision in the absence of full consensus[3]?  How is
consensus defined? Would the the IETF's "rough consensus" be considered
consensus in the sense intended by the G20 leaders (which include
non-Western, non-OECD states)?

Best,
Richard

[1] See the last paragraph of page 5 at:
  https://www.g20.org/gipfeldokumente/G20-leaders-declaration.pdf 

[2] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership 

[3] For a recent example of a W3C decision taken in the absence of full
consensus, see:
  https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017Jul/0000.html