In May 2005, at its meeting in Rio de Janeiro and based on the information then available, the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the International Union of Health Promotion and Health Education (IUHPE) formally mandated its president Maurice Mittelmark to endorse the Bangkok Charter (BC) in August at the 6^th Global Conference on Health Promotion, Bangkok, Thailand, assuming it did not change substantially from the draft discussed in Rio de Janeiro (ONeill, 2005). As IUHPE was an official partner of that Conference, as several members of the Union were involved either individually or representing the Union, and as the Unions electronic journal RHPEO had been utilized as a venue to debate the appropriateness and the content of the forthcoming Bangkok Charter, it then seemed to the BOT, after thorough discussion, the proper way to go.

However, in his report to the BOT coming back from Bangkok, the president announced the following: () Because the Charter had changed quite a lot from the earlier drafts, I have decided that it will need to come back to the Board for discussion and consideration, before we can comment publicly on the Charter. [The WHO representative] asked all participants to sign in support of the Charter, which I did not do. Even though he stated that people signing in support would be doing so as private individuals and not as representatives of their organizations, I felt it inappropriate to sign, as many people would no doubt take my signature to somehow represent our Board and the IUHPE. () I will initiate a List Serv discussion with you, so we can decide if and how we wish to react to the Charter collectively on behalf of the IUHPE (Mittlemark, 2005).

Over the following weeks, several interactions on the BOT electronic discussion list occurred, notably around the accessibility of the Bangkok Charter in other languages than English and the role IUHPE could play in this respect as well as on the appropriateness to endorse or not the new Charter. Among other things, questions were raised about what had happened in the five previous global conferences of WHO and if IUHPE had been asked, or had on its own, ratified the Ottawa Charter, the Sundsvall Declaration and the other closing documents of these conferences. Marie-Claude Lamarre, the Executive Director of the Union and the living memory of the organization, provided the following clarifications: () The first thing to acknowledge is that the context and circumstances in which the Ottawa Charter was developed and adopted in 1986 and the implication of the IUHPE in these processes are totally different from the Bangkok Charter.

The IUHPE at that time was absolutely not involved as an Institution in the process of development of the Charter. I think that it was not even invited to the Ottawa Conference. ()Although we never have "formally" endorsed the Ottawa Charter, we have often affirmed that it was the framework of our health promotion work. We also published subsequent declarations (which we never were asked to endorse, by the way), Adelaide, Sündsvall, and Jakarta, at least.In addition to these declarations, we have systematically spoken in favour of Health Promotion Resolutions developed by WHO and put to the World Health Assembly. The last statement was following the Melbourne Conference in May 2004 (Lamarre, 2005).

On the course that could be followed by the Union about the endorsement of the Bangkok Charter, the General Director also provided the following precisions: () Should the BK Charter be put to the General Assembly of IUHPE in Vancouver in June 2007 and who would do this? No issue can go to the General Assembly without having been endorsed first by the Board of Trustees, or in case of a resolution by the Resolution Committee or the Executive Committee. It is quite clearly in the "powers" of the Board of Trustees to propose policies to the General Assembly; and to review, approve and disseminate position statements which clarify and promote the policies of the IUHPE. (Art. 9 of our constitution) In addition, we have under our Global Bye-laws a very detailed process for adoption of resolutions, which covers a specific type of resolution called "Resolution for support". () So, in my view, the best process would be to consider the endorsement of the Bangkok Charter as a "Resolution for support". The resolution should present the issue in an informative way, prior to stating the points for action. The review and endorsement process are well described in () the Bye-Laws. The Board in Kenya next year should first appoint a resolution committee which will review the resolution to endorse or not the BK Charter and facilitate preparation for presentation at the General Assembly in Vancouver. The decision taken becomes the IUHPE's institutional position (Lamarre, 2005).

Following these precisions and subsequent reactions on the electronic discussion forum, it was thus decided by the President that:

- Further action will depend on IUHPE members, who may put forward resolutions about the Bangkok Charter, which will be handled in the normal manner, and which could lead to some form of endorsement;

- The membership will be invited through RHPEO and P&E to partake in discussions that might lead to the forwarding of resolutions on this matter.

Consequently, this paper is an invitation to BOT officials as well as to all IUHPE members both to contribute their views about the Bangkok Charter and the relevance for IUHPE to endorse it as well as to more formally submit resolutions through the existing mechanisms if they find it appropriate. The final official version of the Bangkok Charter can be found at and downloaded at <http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/6gchp/bangkok_charter/en/index.html>, in English only for now.

As far as RHPEO goes, we will continue to publish papers from members in the series: From Ottawa 1986 to Vancouver 2007, Should the Ottawa Charter be revisited? all the way up to our next global conference in Vancouver where the issues taken up by the various declarations of global WHO conferences, notably the Ottawa one in 1986, will be at the core of its program ( see http://www.iuhpeconference.org/). We are thus looking forward to a strong ongoing debate until then!

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References

Lamarre, Marie-Claude (2005). About the final version of the BCHP in a Globalized World. IUHPE BOT electronic discussion list, September 16 2005.

Mittelmark, Maurice (2005). President's Report from the Bangkok Global Conference on Health Promotion. IUHPE BOT electronic discussion list, August 15 2005.

O'Neill, Michel (2005). The Bangkok Charter: text of the final preliminary draft for consultation. Reviews of Health Promotion and Education Online, Month 2005. WWW