Dear Members of the International Network No to War – No to NATO,

Dear friends and colleagues,

Over the past years our network has been active in delegitimizing NATO, struggling for its abolition, and promoting alternatives to NATO. Please find more information on our website (www.no-to-nato.org) and in our last year’s activity report (http://no-to-nato.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rechenschaftsbericht-AGM-NATO-20141.pdf).

In order to engage more organizations and people in our network, at last year’s annual meeting, it was decided to have an email election process for the election of the new international coordinating committee. The result of the election will be announced at our annual meeting in Helsinki on September 6^th 2015 (http://no-to-nato.org/2015/06/anual-meeting-2015-network-no-to-war-no-to-nato/). Prior to the annual meeting we will have the conference “NATO and the Baltic Sea Area” (we will send out a first program soon (http://no-to-nato.org/2015/06/save-the-date/)).

The election process is the following:

• Call for candidates until July 31^st
• An election committee consisting of Dave Webb (CND, GB), Pascal Luig (Scientists for Peace, Germany) and nn (vrede, Belgium) will collect the candidates and will continue with the election process and send you the list of proposed candidates.
• The election procedure will close end of August. The deadline for returning a ballot is on August 28^th

We ask you now for a call for candidates for the international coordinating committee of No to War – No to NATO. Please submit a candidate from your organization until July 31 2015 to .

In order to have a structured election process the ICC decided on certain rules and guidelines for the election, PLEASE read carefully:

• Each organization can only propose one candidate
  • This proposal should include a presentation of the candidate (about 1/2 page) and a confirmation letter of the organization, that she/he will be accepted by the organization as a candidate.
  • We will not vote deputies of ICC members. Rather we decided to have a more practical work style: if an ICC member is not able to attend a meeting (face to face or telephone conference) she/he can send for this date a one-time-substitute from here/his organization
  • In this election process, members of the network may only vote for members of the ICC. Once the new ICC is constituted, it will decide on chairs of the ICC itself.
• Each country should not propose more than three candidates
  • We would like to ask you to coordinate with other organizations of the network from your country. If you need any help or if more than three proposals from one country will be submitted, the election committee will try to put all proposing organizations into contact to find a common solution.
• Each organization gets ONE voting ballot
  • Small and large organizations will have the same weight in the election. Each organization may return one voting ballot only. The limit of the members of the ICC has been set at 15. Therefore, each organization may vote for 15 candidates on this ballot. More details will follow with the list of proposed candidates in early August.
• Further information for potential candidates
  • With this announcement we will resend the document “The bodies of the network” (this was developed for the elections in 2013). In the link below, you find information on: What is the network? What is the International Coordinating Committee No to War – No to NATO (ICC)? What is the job of the ICC?
    http://no-to-nato.org/2013/01/the-bodies-of-the-network-and-the-job-of-the-icc/
• Information on membership in the network
  • All initiatives, organizations, groups who signed the Stuttgart Appeal are member of the network. For signing the appeal send an email to .
    A list of all organizations signed the Stuttgart Appeal can be found here: http://no-to-nato.org/2008/11/appeal-from-stuttgart-oct-2008/.
    If your organization is not listed, please send us a short note to .

We hope that many of you will participate in this form of electing ICC members and we are looking forward to your proposals.

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Greetings,

Kristine Karch and Lucas Wirl

Co-Chairs of the ICC No to War – No to NATO

www.no-to-nato.org