DIVISION III
PROVISIONS FOR GOVERNANCE OF THE CODE
PROVISION 7
PERMANENT NOMENCLATURE COMMITTEES
7.1. There are nine Permanent Nomenclature Committees, including five specialist committees (clauses (e)–(i)):
(a) General Committee;
(b) Editorial Committee;
(c) Committee on Institutional Votes;
(d) Registration Committee;
(e) Nomenclature Committee for Vascular Plants;
(f) Nomenclature Committee for Bryophytes;
(g) Nomenclature Committee for Fungi;
(h) Nomenclature Committee for Algae;
(i) Nomenclature Committee for Fossils.
Membership
7.2. Members of the Permanent Nomenclature Committees are elected by an International Botanical Congress (except where indicated otherwise). The committees have power to elect officers as desired, to fill vacancies, and to establish temporary subcommittees in consultation with the General Committee.
7.3. The General Committee has, in addition to its ordinary (elected) members, the following ex-officio members: the secretaries of the five specialist committees (Prov. 7.1(e)–(i)), the Rapporteur-général, the Vice-rapporteur, and the President and Secretary-general of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.
7.4. The Editorial Committee comprises individuals who should preferably have been present at the Nomenclature Section of the relevant International Botanical Congress and includes at least one specialist in each of vascular plants, bryophytes, fungi, algae, and fossils and at least one individual nominated by the Nomenclature Committee for Fungi who attended the Fungal Nomenclature Session of the relevant International Mycological Congress; the Rapporteur-général and Vice-rapporteur of the relevant International Botanical Congress serve as Chair and Secretary, respectively, of the Editorial Committee.
7.5. The Committee on Institutional Votes comprises six members, each to represent a different continent, plus the Rapporteur-général, who serves as its chair.
7.6. The Registration Committee includes at least five members appointed by the Nomenclature Section selected, in part, to ensure geographical balance, and representatives nominated by:
(a) the other Permanent Nomenclature Committees;
(b) prospective or functioning nomenclatural repositories;
(c) the International Association for Plant Taxonomy;
(d) the International Association of Bryologists;
(e) the International Federation of Palynological Societies;
(f) the International Mycological Association;
(g) the International Organisation of Palaeobotany;
(h) the International Phycological Society.
7.7. Each specialist committee includes the Rapporteur-général, the Vice-rapporteur, and the Secretary of the General Committee as non-voting ex-officio members.
7.8. The Nomenclature Committee for Fungi is elected by an International Mycological Congress and includes the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary of the Fungal Nomenclature Bureau (Prov. 8.1) as non-voting ex-officio members if they are not already members of the Nomenclature Committee for Fungi.
Recommendation 1. Each committee should, so far as is practicable, be geographically and gender balanced.
Functions
7.9. The General Committee is charged with receiving proposals to conserve, protect, or reject names, proposals to suppress works, and requests for decisions (Art. 14.12, F.2.1, 56.2, F.7.1, 34.1, 38.4, and 53.4) and for referring these proposals or requests to the specialist committee(s) concerned (receipt and referral of proposals and requests are automatic upon their publication). The General Committee is also charged with considering recommendations of the specialist committees and either approving or overturning those recommendations or referring them back to the specialist committees for further consideration. The General Committee may also communicate an international standard format in addition to, or as a successor to, Portable Document Format (PDF) for effective publication of electronic material (Art. 29.3) and is empowered to ratify a list of institutional votes drawn up by the Committee on Institutional Votes (see Prov. 3.1).
7.10. Each of the five specialist committees examines proposals to conserve or reject names, proposals to suppress works, and requests for decisions (Art. 14.12, 56.2, 34.1, 38.4, and 53.4) referred to them by the General Committee, to which they then submit their recommendations. They may also submit opinions on proposals to amend the Code to the Bureau of Nomenclature. The Nomenclature Committee for Fungi has a mandate under Art. F.2.1 and F.7.1 with respect to lists of protected or rejected names proposed for approval and under Art. F.5.3 with respect to repositories for fungal names.
7.11. The Editorial Committee is charged with the preparation and publication of the Code in conformity with the decisions approved by the relevant International Botanical Congress. It is empowered to make any editorial modification not affecting the meaning of the provisions concerned, e.g. to change the wording of any Article, Note, or Recommendation and to avoid duplication, to add or remove non-voted Examples, and to place Articles, Notes, Recommendations, and Chapters of the Code in the most convenient place, while retaining the previous numbering insofar as possible.
7.12. The Committee on Institutional Votes maintains a list of institutions and their allocated votes for the upcoming International Botanical Congress (see Prov. 3.1).
7.13. The Registration Committee is charged with assisting the design and implementation of repositories for nomenclatural novelties and/or any nomenclatural act, monitoring the functioning of existing repositories, and advising the General Committee on relevant matters.
Procedural rules
7.14. A specialist committee, provided that a qualified majority (at least 60%) of its members supports or opposes a proposal, may make any of the following recommendations to the General Committee: conserve or not conserve a name; reject or not reject a name; suppress or not suppress a publication; and for names of organisms treated as fungi, protect or not protect names on a list. In the case of binding decisions on valid publication (Art. 38.4) and homonymy (Art. 53.4), the qualified majority decides whether or not a binding decision should be recommended, then a simple majority (more than 50%) decides between the two alternatives: i.e. treat a name as validly published or not validly published; treat names as homonyms or not homonyms. If a specialist committee is unable to make a recommendation after voting at least twice, the proposal is referred to the General Committee without a recommendation from the specialist committee.
7.15. The General Committee may approve or overturn a recommendation of a specialist committee provided that a qualified majority (at least 60%) of the General Committee members supports or opposes the recommendation. In either case, the General Committee makes its own recommendation, which is subject to the decision of a later International Botanical Congress (see also Art. 14.15, 34.2 and 56.3). If the required majority is not achieved after voting at least twice, the General Committee is considered to have recommended against the proposal or against making a binding decision. The General Committee may also decide to refer the matter back to the specialist committee for further consideration.
Recommendation 2. The General Committee and the specialist committees should publish their recommendations at least annually.