MIT agreed to host the consortium. MIT would be the American headquarters and CERN would be the European headquarters. Any member would be free to participate in any meeting or working group put together by the consortium. The W3C develops open technical specifications that can be used for free by anyone. These specifications are reached by a very democratic process.
Any member can suggest a new project.
If there is sufficient support within the consortium the project proceeds. The W3C does not enforce its recommendations. It simply encourages everyone to adopt them. Vint Cerf discusses his views on the WWW .