[WSIS CS-Plenary] WSIS CS press statement for release

[mclauglm at po.muohio.edu]

Ralf and all,

Many thanks for your efforts at Prepcom 3: The Sequel (or The 
Nightmare Returns). I've read over the press statement and fully 
agreeing with all sentiments contained in it. Respectfully, I'd like 
to offer a couple of suggestions, however:

1. In the section beginning "The struggle over human rights": It is 
not clear to me what is meant by "Not even the basis of human life in 
dignity and equality, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights finds 
support as the basis for the Information Society." It's not clear 
what entity supports the UDHR as the basis for the Information 
Society.

Perhaps better: "As the basis for dignity and equality in human life, 
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be the basis for the 
Information Society. Governments are not able to agree on a 
comittment to basic human right standards as the basis for the 
Information Society, most prominent in this case being the freedom of 
expression."

2. In the press statement, the lead is buried, as they say in the 
news business. It seems to me that CS must begin its statement with 
the sentiment that we have "come to the conclusion that there is no 
political will to agree on a common vision," that "therefore we will 
now stop giving input to the intergovernmental documents, and that 
"we will not endorse documents that represent the lowest common 
denominator among governments." These statements, it seems to me, are 
the ones that will grab the attention of news personnel and they will 
be the "quotes of the day."

Thanks,

Lisa







>We are already sitting in the press room. The ITU translators did an
>incredible job and already provided a french version here on paper. We
>will pass it around as soon as we get it electronically.
>
>Ralf
>Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:CS-press-statement-14-11-03-fin 
>(RTF /MSWD) (0005B96F)