[WSIS CS-Plenary] Intersessional Meeting ends with Contested Draft Summit Declaration

[Ralf Bendrath]

Intersessional Meeting ends with Contested Draft Summit Declaration
Civil Society inclusion was not enough
    
Paris, 18 July 2003. This afternoon, the Paris intersessional meeting
ended with little more results than were already in place yesterday. The
summit declaration is still a draft working document with a whole number
of bracketed (i.e. not agreed upon) paragraphs and formulations. The
action plan was not even discussed in depth. A new draft Declaration was
be distributed, which incorporates some views from observers. A second
document was also distributed reflecting discussion of the plan of
action. The president of the preparatory committee, Adama Samassekou,
announced that the work on the action plan will be carried further on a
regional basis before the third PrepCom meeting in Geneva in September.
A refined version of the draft action plan will be released on the ITU
website by 23 of August. The morning session in the plenary was
dominated by strong statements from civil society representatives.
Meryem Marzouki from the Human Rights Caucus, speaking on behalf of the
Civil Society Plenary, voiced the "profound sense of disappointment and
frustration" felt by many civil society participants. More...

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