FIDE Laws of Chess 2009

As I remarked earlier, the draft proposals for the 2009 FIDE Laws of Chess are being circulated. While most of the changes have been in tidying up some of the wording of previous rules, a couple of interesting proposals have been made.
In terms of changing the wording the clause "even with the most unskilled counterplay" has been dropped from section 6.10 (and wherever else it is used). The removal of this phrase indicates that games ending on time with K+N v K+N (as in this years Womens World Championship) or K+N v K+B must be declared wins (rather than draws) by arbiters. The Rules Committee is basically saying "we have looked at this rule, we've dropped some superfluous wording, and we like what is left".
The most significant new rule is to allow organisers to forbid draws by agreement before a set number of rules, or even at all. The first proposal states

The rules of the competition may specify that players cannot agree a draw in less than a specified number of moves or at all, without the agreement of the arbiter or his representative.

The second proposal says

Players are not allowed to propose a draw. They can claim a draw in positions mentioned in 9.2 and 9.3. In all other positions players cannot agree a draw without the agreement of the arbiter or his representative.

Now I believe the first proposal is more likely to be accepted, if only for the reason that you can make the second proposal operate under the first one by making the specified number of moves 8,000 or some such large number. But I suspect the real debate will be whether players can claim under 9.2 and 9.3 at any stage of the game. At the Rules and Tournament Regulations Committee meeting where this will be discussed in November I will certainly raise the issue, not because I have a strong position on this, but simply to make sure that the rules clarify the situation about players agreeing to short draws by playing trivial repetitions.

As for the rest of it there is some stuff about mobiles phones, some clarification about what spectators can do if they see a breach of the laws (tell an arbiter but not the players), and as mentioned before, a proposed set of rules for Chess 960. However there is one interesting, and helpful, piece of wording in the sections on Quickplay and Blitz. There is finally an attempt to define "adequate supervision". For Quickplay it is 1 arbiter for at most 3 games, and for Blitz, 1 arbiter for each game. And if adequate supervision for these games exists, then the normal rules of chess apply.