At the 18 July 2017 meeting of the Negotiating Group on Rules, the Chair reported that the proponents
collectively had requested that the Chair produce a compilation, in the form of a matrix, of all of the
textual proposals that had been received, to assist Members in analysing and comparing the
proposals. As the Negotiating Group agreed with this request at that meeting, the Chair has now
prepared the attached matrix, which has been validated by the proponents.
Regarding its status, as emphasized at the meeting the matrix is not a Chair text. It is simply a compilation, topic by topic, of the seven textual proposals now on the table. Nothing has been added to or subtracted from any of the proposals and no judgements are expressed or implied. It is meant to be a purely technical document and is without prejudice to and does not replace any of the proposals, all of which remain before the Group. The matrix is intended as a tool, to serve a basis for topical discussions of the proposals when we reconvene in the fall. Between now and then, it is my hope that it will help Members to identify areas of greatest and least convergence among the proposals and thus assist us in sharpening our
focus as we intensify our work in the lead-up to MC11.
Concerning its content, the matrix is organized into rows representing the topics and sub-topics, and columns representing the proposals. Thus for each topic or subtopic, the matrix presents a side-by-side comparison of the corresponding texts from the proposals.
Regarding the topics and subtopics, these have been derived from the proposals themselves and the aim is that each row in the matrix addresses one main idea. Thus, the breakouts are as granular as required to do this, such that similar ideas across different proposals are grouped
together.
The way that the topics are broken out has meant that in some cases the text from a given proposal on a particular topic is a partial excerpt from the relevant provision in that proposal,
rather than the entire provision. In addition, for the same reason, in some cases, where a particular provision in a proposal is relevant to more than one topic, it is repeated in each place
where it is relevant. Because of the variation in the structures of the different proposals, some compromises were necessary in categorizing elements of certain proposals. Again, this is entirely without prejudice to the substance.
In terms of formatting, for ease of reading the formatting in the matrix is uniform. Thus, the original formatting in each proposal has been conformed to a standardized formatting that is used
throughout the matrix. The only new formatting that has been introduced in the matrix is underlining of certain terms (mainly in the proposals’ definitions), simply for ease of reading.
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