[WSIS CS-Plenary] Prepcom 3A opening plenary

[Steve Buckley]

Dear all

At the Prepcom 3A opening plenary this morning there was one speaker slot 
each for international organisations, business, and civil society to 
comment on the President's non-paper on the draft Declaration.

Karen Banks spoke on behalf of the Civil Society Content and Themes Group. 
The presentation was based on the letter from Sally Burch to Samassekou and 
the CS comments on the non-paper. Below is the text of the presentation.

To avoid continuous duplication this week on the plenary and the content 
and themes lists, further postings on CS content at Prepcom 3A will be 
posted to the WSIS-CT list only. If you are not already receiving postings 
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Best wishes

Steve Buckley

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Civil Society Content and Themes
10 November 2003

Prepcom 3A Opening Plenary presentation
Comments on the President's non-paper

We appreciate the inclusion of several civil society proposals into the 
President's non-paper on the Draft Declaration. In particular we recognize 
there has been an openness to strengthening references among other things, 
to human rights, social inclusion, education and sustainable development, 
and that the Millennium Development Goals are listed in detail in paragraph 2.

We also welcome the President's commitment to a participative approach and 
to seek out a satisfactory balance between technological and societal 
issues. Nonetheless, we are concerned that the declaration still fails to 
adequately address some fundamental issues of the information society and 
still has an excessive bias towards technological and market solutions.

Some issues of major concern are:

The "Information Society" on which the World Summit appears to be based 
continues to reflect, to a large extent, a narrow understanding in which 
ICTs are generally taken to mean telecommunications and the Internet. This 
approach tends to marginalise some key issues relating to the development 
potential inherent in the combination of knowledge and technology and thus 
conflicts with the broader development mandate given in UNGA Resolution 56/183.

A commitment to a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented 
Information Society based on respect for human rights should be embedded 
throughout the Declaration of Principles and the Action Plan. In our view 
the key challenges of the Information Society are to ensure the benefit of 
all, including the most marginalised, to extend the global knowledge 
commons and the public domain and to ensure access for all to the means of 
information and communication.

Limitations on free access and fair use of knowledge, information and 
communication systems imposed by legal and technical means must remain the 
exception, to be applied only where strictly necessary. Free software, open 
standards in the technical infrastructure, and access to radio spectrum are 
essential components not adequately reflected in this document.

The draft ignores fundamental differences between intellectual and physical 
products. Nor does the draft give sufficient recognition to the dangers 
ICTs can pose to civil rights and liberties, such as the right to privacy, 
and the need for a strong international commitment to reaffirming and 
protecting those rights. The draft retains statements that endanger the 
freedom of expression.

The Declaration mentions the need to address geographical and social 
divides, but falls short of expressing a strong commitment to creating the 
mechanisms for redressing them.  It also fails to emphasize and express 
support for the key role of community initiatives and people's involvement 
in the decisions that control their lives in the information society. There 
should be much stronger commitment to community driven solutions including 
community media.

In short, although we consider that progress has been made, the present 
draft falls well short of the expectations of civil society and we remain 
concerned that the many constructive and well informed proposals that we 
have put forward have not been given adequate attention.


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            steve at commedia.org.uk
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         http://www.commedia.org.uk
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