The Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights Plenary adopted formal participation criteria at the annual session, held in Washington DC on May 7 and 8, 2007. The adoption of formal participation criteria, combined with last year's decision to remove the requirement that companies or NGOs could participate in the Plenary only if its home government was also a participant, paves the way towards an expansion of the Voluntary Principles membership. The Governance Working Group was assigned responsibility for developing a standard process for the review and approval of new members. The Communications Working Group was recast as the Reporting Criteria Working Group, with a mandate to develop criteria that will guide how all pillars should report on their implementation efforts.
The Plenary also included sessions on company, government and NGO implementation efforts. The composition of the Steering Committee for 2007 was set, consisting of International Alert, Human Rights Watch, Rio Tinto, ExxonMobil, and the governments of the United States and Norway.