[WSIS CS-Plenary] Spelling of GATS for the Civil Society Priorities Document: (12 July 2003) and link to the "Governance list"

[Thomas Ruddy]

Colleagues,

Meryem Marzouki wrote on Saturday, July 12, 2003 
>Please also note that "AGCS" is the acronym of the French name of the 
>WTO agreement: it should be replaced by GATTS, the English one.

The English abbreviation for the General Agreement on Trade in Services is
written not with two, but with one T: GATS

The "Governance list" mentioned in Meryem's posting below can be subscribed
to at https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance


I congratulate the CT Group (primarily Bill and Sally) on finishing this
doc. on time, and I applaud their expedient solution to the following urgent
needs in view of the tight time constraint. These two urgent needs, though,
still persist. Civil Society demands that WSIS participants: 
1. "reexamine the current management of Internet names and numbers and other
related mechanisms", and

2. establish a multi-stakeholder observatory committee to pay "Attention to
other regional and international processes" (final section on page 5 of the
Civil Society Priorities Document: (12 July 2003)).

I think that -- especially as these needs persist -- this burning issue
makes for a suitable climax on the next-to-last page of our input document.

Regards,
Thomas

========================================
Thomas Ruddy, thomruddy at yahoo.com  http://www.wsis.ethz.ch
http://www.webster.ch/faculty/ruddy
Switzerland


> -----Original Message-----
> From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On
> Behalf Of Meryem Marzouki
> Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 1:43 AM
> To: ct at wsis-cs.org; plenary at wsis-cs.org; hr-wsis at iris.sgdg.org
> Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Comments on the draft CS document
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'd like to thank the volunteers of the drafting group for the civil
> society document which has been circulated on July 10th to the list.
> The document is obviously the result of a huge effort, made in a hurry,
> and this is not an easy task specially given the diversity of civil
> society positions.
> I fully understand the difficulty - or even the impossibility - to
> reach a true consensus document in such conditions. I also think it is
> unavoidable that such a document lacks many specific points.
> Furthermore, I do share the view that only those organizations who
> eventually accept to endorse the final CS document will be accountable
> for the position it reflects, but this doesn't mean that we shouldn't
> do our best working towards the wider number of endorsements. Finally,
> I agree with Sally when she says that "consensus means that in the
> spirit of achieving a common position, there are no overriding
> objections".
> 
> Unfortunately, after having carefully read the proposed draft, I'm
> afraid there are such overriding objections, and that, to some extent,
> the document results in a juxtaposition of contradictory positions
> rather than in consensus. I think everyone would agree that this is not
> our common objective.
> 
> Let me then highlight the three major points of disagreement that
> should be mentioned, and propose alternative rewriting for these points:
> 
> 1/ "Global governance" section
> 
> First of all, the second paragraph of this section (on the definition
> of a "Global Internet Governance") is completely contradictory with the
> whole CS vision reflected not only in this draft document, but also in
> all the CS document endorsed by a wide number of organizations since
> the beginning of the WSIS process. As it is, this paragraph means that
> the undersigned organizations are in favor of establishing special
> rules for a "cyberspace" (what the hell could this be?!), different
> from the common rule of law. This is in particular contradictory with
> the priorities set by the Human Rights caucus. What is proposed in this
> paragraph is to establish and/or follow special rules and regulation in
> the "cyberspace".
> This is unacceptable because this would open the door to non democratic
> process, or open it more than it is already, "thanks to" entities like
> ITU, ICANN, WTO, WIPO, etc.
> "Content regulation, free speech, access, privacy, information
> security, data protection, e-commerce, intellectual property rights,
> information infrastructure development etc." should by no mean be
> governed in such thing as a "global internet governance" framework but,
> on the contrary, should be dealt with, taking into account the
> peculiarities of such issues, in the framework of national and
> international common rule of law and specially in reference to UN
> International Covenant on both civil and political rights and economic,
> social and cultural rights.
> 
> Therefore, I'm asking for the complete withdrawal of this paragraph
> from the "Global governance" section.
> 
> Secondly, I have never seen - and certainly not on the governance
> working group list - any consensus to affirm that "global governance in
> information societies should be based on a multistakeholder bottom-up
> policy development process (buPDP)" [first paragraph of this section],
> specially since this "global governance" goes far beyond the sole issue
> of Internet names, numbers and protocols. Moreover, what does "(buPDP)
> should be open in particular to stakeholders most closely concerned by
> a certain policy" mean? Is it a call for global governance (not only
> Internet governance) made by groups of lobbyists promoting their
> particular interests? I thought there was, on the contrary, a CS
> consensus on democratic, inclusive, transparent, and publicly
> accountable process. This is not at all what is meant by this paragraph.
> 
> Although I share Bill Drake's concern to deal in this document not only
> with Internet governance but also with global governance, it is obvious
> that, as it is written, the "global governance" section raises strong
> objections and doesn't not even correspond to Bill's suggestion made on
> the governance list. Since we obviously don't have the time now to
> discuss such complex issues as global governance, it is then preferable
> to concentrate this section only on Internet governance, and to rewrite
> it in a way that would allow wide consensus. Here is an alternative
> proposal for that:
> 
> ==========
> "Internet governance
> 
> An information and communication society good governance must be based
> on the values of participation, transparency, accountability and the
> rule of law. This particularly implies the democratic management of
> international bodies dealing with ICTs. Given the borderless
> characteristics of ICTs, decision making bodies should ensure the
> respect of principles of democracy and openness, as well as of legality
> and sovereignty.
> 
> In particular, the management of the core resources of the Internet,
> that are the Internet protocols, standards and identifiers such as
> domain names and IP addresses, must serve the public interest at the
> global, national and local levels.
> 
> To this end, the current management of Internet names and numbers
> should specially be revised, taking into account the possibility of the
> coexistence of multiple root servers, provided that a strict
> international regulation be defined and enforced for their good
> articulation and global consistency. Furthermore, any decision made on
> protocols and standards should be compatible with international human
> rights standards, and specially the rights to freedom of expression, to
> privacy, and the principle of non discrimination. Such decisions should
> also allow a better balanced flow of information."
> ==========
> 
> 2/ "Access and Infrastructure issues" section
> 
> Here are some remarks first:
> I thought we agreed since at least PrepCom2 preparation, that CS
> documents should not give priority to "community networks" over public
> service infrastructure policies. Both could coexist and complement each
> other.
> Moreover, I think we should avoid such wording as "global information
> infrastructure", which is referring to the US doctrine established for
> some decades I'm afraid. "information infrastructure" would be enough
> to mean what is intended to mean. Also, speaking of "rules of fair
> competition" for infrastructure means that the CS as a whole is
> promoting the telecom privatization policies, which is not, to my
> knowledge, a consensus point, not to mention that this will be
> requested strongly enough by the industry. A CS document should on the
> contrary emphasize public services and infrastructure development and
> expansion in a way serving the public interest.
> 
> My most important point about this section deals with its last
> paragraph (on a "digital solidary fund"). The concern here is the same
> as the previous one regarding "cyberspace" and a special regulation for
> it. What could mean this concept of "digital solidarity"?! Isn't it
> (I'm sure, unvoluntarily) promoting a neo-colonial approach of the
> development of the South, by dictating to least developed countries
> what should be their economic and social priorities, ensuring at the
> same time the expansion of the Northern industries and corporations
> market? We should stuck with solidarity and equal terms of
> international exchange, no need to refer to a "digital solidarity" that
> is quite fuzzy, to say the least. It is, BTW, very similar to the US
> governement policy on AIDS : forbidding the development and large use
> of generic medication, and at the same time providing the South with
> charity funds to fight AIDS (ensuring at the same time that this money
> will end back in the pocket of the multinational industry).
> 
> Since I'm sure this was not the objective of this paragraph, I simply
> propose to withdraw its first sentence, so that the last paragraph of
> this section becomes:
> 
> ==========
> "WSIS should agree to draw up an International Convention on a policy
> of subsidised tariffs and prices for digital inclusion public policies
> and projects, and of the fair renegotiation of bilateral network
> interconnections and multilateral peering agreements, towards better
> balanced and lower cost international route, Internet bandwidth and hub
> repartition."
> ==========
> 
> 3/ "Attention to other regional and international processes" section
> 
> This section is most welcome in a CS document, thanks for putting it
> in. I would furthermore suggest that we add the reference to the EU
> Directive on data retention, which is a major threat to privacy. Also,
> since this section is the right place to point the dangers of the
> Council of Europe cybercrime Convention (as the document already does),
> I suggest to withdraw the reference to it in the "information security
> issue" section. Not that I'm against insisting on that (rather the
> contrary!), but it seems a bit odd that this is the single "CS
> priorities" section addressing international/intergovernmental specific
> instruments which we find bad.
> Please also note that "AGCS" is the acronym of the French name of the
> WTO agreement: it should be replaced by GATTS, the English one. Same
> remark applies to ITU's "taxe de repartition" which should read in
> English "repartition tax", I assume.
> 
> Finally, regarding the establishment of an "observatory committee", why
> should it be a "multistakeholder" committee ? Shouldn't we work for our
> own objectives, as civil society ? I propose that this would become a
> "civil society observatory committee" and that it should have a 4th
> task, which should be: "propose supervisory mechanisms and indicators
> for human rights and sustainable democratic development compliance in
> the information and communication society".
> 
> I hope all the points raised in this message would be taken into
> account, so as to ensure the widest range of civil society
> organizations endorsements for the final document.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Meryem Marzouki
> IRIS - France
> Human Rights in the Information Society (HRIS) caucus co-coordinator
> [NB. While all the comments in this message does not necessarily
> reflect the views of HRIS caucus members, since we haven't had time yet
> to discuss the draft CS document, most of the rewriting proposals is
> taken from HRIS caucus written contribution to the intersessional
> meeting and/or from further HRIS caucus members general suggestions]
> 
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