[WSIS CS-Plenary] Comments on Civil Society Priorities Document

[Ronald Koven]

Dear Bill McIver and others:

There are a number of very good points in the Civil Society Priorities
Document distributed on 12 July. But there are also several very important
points that the World Press Freedom Committee could not endorse. It is
highly likely that most major international, mainstream journalistic NGOs
would have the same or similar difficulties.

I think that posting the document for comment on 10 July for it to be
turned into final form after just one day was a very ill-considered
procedure. Considering differences in time zones that undoubtedly left many
groups with no time at all to react. This is not a formula for reaching
consensus.

I wholeheartedly agreed with most of the comments made by Meryem Marzouki
and Wolfgang Kleinwaechter and was glad to see they were incorporated. But
there were some specific suggestions they made that caused me very deep
concern indeed, and I regret that those were included. Notably, these were:

  The notion in the governance section that "decision-making bodies should
respect ... sovereignty."
That is an idea that is being pressed in particular by China and other
countries seeking to restrict Internet access by banning non-governmental
ISPs and by creating Intranets to prevent their nationals from accessing
the outside world. It is a clear violation of the rights in Article 19 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to "seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

I'm truly surprised that my old friend Wolfgang, as the repentant advocate
of the notion of "national information sovereignty" during the Cold War,
was not alive to the danger of the "sovereignty" idea -- introduced by
China into the Tokyo Declaration on WSIS.

  The call in the same governance section for "decisions [to] allow for a
better-balanced flow of information," as well as the same language in the
human rights section.
That language was a core code word expression during the New World
Information and Communication Order debate to attempt to restrict
distribution of the world's leading news agencies (e.g. Reuter, Associated
Press, Agence France-presse, EFE, DPA) on the grounds that they do not
properly cover development and other positive news -- as defined by
authoritarian governments -- of the Third World. Even at UNESCO, where that
idea was introduced as a core demand of NWICO, the expression was amended
to read, "a free and balanced flow of information, without any obstacles to
press freedom." "Balanced Information" is almost by definition censored
information. Extreme situations like war and conflict, massacres and
atrocities, famine, etc., are by nature "unbalanced" realities that
authoritarian governments want to have reported only in their own
"balanced" terms.

Beyond that -- as the debates at PrepCom 2 made it abundantly clear -- the
revival of the NWICO-era call for a "Right to Communicate," makes it
certain that the mainstream journalistic NGOs could not endorse this
document. As we recalled in Geneva, the "right to communicate" is already
embodied in Article 19 of the UDHR, and any effort to "improve" on that
wording can only open the door to restrictionism, as is amply shown in
various recent attempts to define what an "RtC" would include. At best,
"RtC" is dangerously ambiguous, at worst it is a cover for censorship in
new guises.

I was nevertheless heartened by the call to reaffirm Article 19 and to
implement it -- the key demand that was formulated by the Media Caucus at
PrepCom 2.

There are other very good features in the Civil Societies Priorities
Document, which only heightens my sadness that we cannot go along with it
as it stands. Positive elements from a press freedom standpoint include:

  Rejection of the Information Society as a "form of social organization."
  Opposition to the ill-considered Cybercrime Convention of the Council of
Europe -- for just the right reasons.
  Alarm over destruction of civilian communication systems during armed
conflicts.

I also share the various concerns being expressed over legitimizing
governmental attempts to take control over ICANN and/or the functions it
serves.

That said, calls for "appropriate regulation" (sustainable democratic
development sect.), "protection from discrimination or hate incitement"
(human rights sect.), hostility to copyright (global knowledge commons
sect.), assignment to media of good-sounding tasks "in sustaining and
developing the world's cultures and languages" (cultural and linguistic
diversity sect.) give serious pause from a libertarian or press freedom
viewpoint.

Further, there seems to be an attempt to create a distinction between
something called "community media" (which should receive public subsidies)
and other media. There are plenty of local media throughout the world doing
a good job of reporting on their communities. To do that, they must be
financially independent. When they depend on governmental or other official
subsidies, they inevitably wind up as mouthpieces for central or local
authorities. A prime example of this is the subservience to Russia's
regional governates of the subsidized local media in contemporary Russia.
Authoritarian and other governments throughout the world are only too glad
to accede to demands to finance local and other media, so that they can
call the tune.

I hope we can explore these issues further when we meet over the next few
days. Meanwhile, I must respectfully decline to endorse the Civil Society
Priorities Document, as it now stands.

Best regards,

Rony Koven 
European Representative
World Press Freedom Committee

PS Compliments to Sally and Bill for the stylistic quality and clarity of
the text, rare for this kind of statement. One small quibble: the word
"repartition" is French, not English. An Anglophone would say
"distribution."