[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] Internet governance : roles of plenary and governance lists

[Adam Peake]

Bertrand, these are good suggestions. A practical addition would be 
to open the governance caucus mailing list archives so that anyone 
can easily take a look rather than going through the subscription 
process.

One of the tasks Jeanette and I have talked about recently was to 
ensure communication with other parts of civil society. You're right 
to encourage people to join the governance caucus, and you are right 
that the plenary list is the means to inform CS at large, but we also 
think there needs to be a more regular communication channel with 
other caucuses, not just the notice board of the plenary.

The work of the secretary general's task force on Internet governance 
will be one of the focuses of WSIS from now until Tunis. Civil 
society must be involved and able to participate, and the governance 
caucus can only assume a representative role in a legitimate way if 
it is able to present the broad view of civil society.

Some other issues we think need to be addressed:

*A letter to Annan (his office) expressing the caucus' desire to 
contribute to the new task force.

*A letter to Utsumi (Richard Hill/Bob Shaw) with names of people the 
caucus would like to be respectfully invited to the ITU workshop. 
This is now urgent, should be sent before the end of this week.

*Inform/remind others -- UNICT Task Force, WSIS secretariat, for 
example-- that the governance caucus exists and wishes to contribute 
to work they are preparing.

*Let other caucuses know what we're doing, ask for their advice, tell 
them how to get in touch, etc.

*And I guess it's not too early to start thinking about the next 
phase of the prepcom process.  A first prepcom is expected sometime 
in the summer, is that right?

And I'm sure there's more (soliciting contributions, informing 
organizations likely to be interested in what's going on but not yet 
part of the WSIS work, etc.)

Thanks,

Adam, and on behalf of Jeanette


Adam Peake
Jeanette Hofmann



At 1:39 PM +0100 1/20/04, Bertrand de LA CHAPELLE wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>The WSIS Action plan requests the UN SG to set up a WG on
>Internet Governance.
>
>Ensuring participation of civil society in this process and
>making sure it has a voice is a priority, be it only to set
>a positive pattern in the WSIS follow-up.
>
>This will trigger a lot of exchanges and online discussions
>within civil society that will make the plenary list
>unmanageable if it receives all postings. For that issue as
>well as for other thematic issues, the Plenary mailing list
>should be freed from the thematic debates that can be
>conducted on caucusses lists.
>
>For the CS Internet governance caucus, a mailing list has
>been set up for some time (see
>https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance). It is the
>natural space to conduct discussion and debate on these
>issues and prepare the CS participation in the various
>consultation processes taking place in the coming months. I
>therefore suggest all CS discussions related to the UN SG
>Working group on Internet governance to be conducted on the
>governance mailing list.
>
>Interested members of civil society who want to contribute
>are invited to register on that list. Those who want to
>simply follow the debate are invited to subscribe as well to
>be able to visit the archives when they want but disable
>mail delivery in the subscription options page.
>
>The plenary mailing list would therefore be used to :
>-	announce the launch of specific consultations
>-	report regularly on progress
>-	sollicit comments or support from the plenary on
>draft positions
>-	communicate interesting information gathered within
>the thematic list to a wider audience
>
>Hope this will facilitate work.
>
>Cheers
>
>Bertrand
>
>_______________________________________________
>governance mailing list
>governance at lists.cpsr.org
>https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance


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