[WSIS CS-Plenary] UN Official Document System is online

[Georg C. F. Greve]

 || On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:13:48 -0500
 || "Milton Mueller" <Mueller at syr.edu> wrote: 

 mm> Many people involved in WSIS-CS have an interest in intellectual
 mm> property issues but were not involved in the PCT working group.

True. This is also true for any other working group and is getting
somewhat reiterative of what was said before in the discussion.

Not everyone with interest in human rights is involved in the Human
Rights Caucus, not everyone interested in gender issues is involved in
the Gender Caucus. Yet those who take a more detailed interest and who
are focussing on these issues are.

I don't think that asking to abolish the working groups -- which is
ultimately the consequence of denying their work and position any
legitimity -- is really a very useful or constructive suggestion.


Of course "Civil Society" is admittedly a fuzzy concept, which is
probably best described as "those who are actively and professionally
working on a specific area" as in the statement that "Civil Society is
as Civil Society does."

But if you want a statement of "Civil Society" on gender issues, you
would normally not ask the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, although I know
that there are many gender issues affecting their work, you would ask
the Gender Caucus. 

Although it might actually be useful for the Gender Caucus to include
the Indigenous Peoples Caucus on the issue, especially when the issue
is touching heavily on their area, you would definitely not actively
exclude the Gender Caucus from drafting that statement and later claim
that Civil Society was well-represented.


The PCT working group consists of the people who were actively taking
an interest and participating in the work around the areas of Patents,
Copyrights and Trademarks as well as Free Software and Open Standards.

These people selected a couple of representatives who are able to
represent their work and ideas as well as (to a certain extent) the
work and ideas of their organisations.


As you said yourself, Free Software is not represented in any way in
the WGIG. Because the PCT working group was actively excluded from the
WGIG, the same is true for Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks as well
as Open Standards.

Regards,
Georg

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve at fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
GNU Business Network                        (http://mailman.gnubiz.org)
Brave GNU World	                           (http://brave-gnu-world.org)
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