COR
Governance
A standards body's value rests entirely on its neutrality; the Council writes neutrality into checkable rules rather than declaring it.
Five Governance Principles
1. A Cap on Seats
No single member organisation may exceed a set proportion of total seats, and the seats held by supplier members together may not exceed those held by user members. The purpose is to prevent standards being captured by the product characteristics of a few suppliers — once a standard is written so that only one vendor's product can meet it, it is no longer a standard but a marketing document.
2. Standards Are Public
All standards documents are published free of charge and may be freely cited and implemented, with no member-only content. Drafts always go out for public comment, and all comments together with how they were handled are published — including comments not adopted and the reasons for not adopting them.
3. Certification Separate From Commerce
Certification and assessment may not be tied to the sale of any commercial product; certification is never conditional on purchasing a particular product, nor are requirements relaxed because one was purchased. Where an assessor has a commercial relationship with the organisation being assessed, it must be declared and the assessor must recuse themselves.
4. A Standard Must Be Implementable
Before publication, every clause must have been implemented by at least two mutually independent organisations who report their results. Clauses that fail this verification are not published — a standard nobody has implemented is, in essence, only a wish.
5. Revocable
If a published standard is shown to be impractical or to produce unintended harm, the Council is obliged to revise or withdraw it and to publish the reason and the date. The Council does not maintain standards on the grounds that they have already been published — a standard's authority comes from its being right, not from its having been published a long time ago.