[WSIS CS-Plenary] please post draft CS Declaration

[karen banks]

hi sasha

here's a cut and paste text version - i haven't done any reformatting..

karen
=====

WSIS Civil Society Declaration DRAFT V1

18 November 2005


I. Introduction


The WSIS was an opportunity for a wide range of 
actors to work together to develop principles and 
prioritise actions that would lead to democratic, 
inclusive and participate information societies; 
societies in which the ability to access, share 
and communication information and knowledge is 
treated as a public good and take place in a ways 
that strengthens the rich cultural diversity of our world.


Civil society entered the WSIS process with these major goals:


Agreement on financing mechanisms and models that 
will close the growing gaps in access to 
information and communation tools, capacities and 
infrastructure that exist between countries, and in many cases within countries

A vision of the ‘information society’ that is 
human-centred, frame by a global commitment to 
social justice and inclusive development

Achieving a sea change in perceptions of 
participate decision-making. We want the WSIS to 
be a milestone from which the inclusion of civil 
society participation will become more 
comprehensive and integrated at all levels of 
governance and decision making at local, national, regional and global levels


Civil society wants to affirm that it has 
contributed positively to the WSIS process. This 
contribution could have been greater if our 
participation was allowed to be be more 
comprehensive. Our contribution will continue 
beyond the Summit. It is a contribution that is 
made both through constructive engagement and through challenge and critique.


While we value the process, and the outcomes, we 
believe more could have been achieved, 
particularly in terms of financial mechanisms and 
capacity building (of governments and of civil society and other actors).


II: Issues addressed during WSIS phase II


A. Financing


The summit did discuss the importance of new 
financing mechanisms for ICTD, however it failed 
to recognize that ICTD financing presents a 
challenge beyond that of traditional development 
financing. It requires new means and sources and 
the exploration of new models and mechanisms.


Investments in ICTD - in infrastructure, capacity 
building, appropriate software and hardware and 
in developing applications and services – 
underpin all other processes of development 
innovation, learning and sharing, and should be 
seen in the light. Though development resources 
are admittedly scarce and have to be allocated to 
with care and discretion, ICTD financing should 
not be viewed as directly in competition with 
financing of other developmental sectors.


Financing ICTD requires innovation, with adequate 
mechanisms for transparency, evaluation, and 
follow-up. Financial resources need to be 
mobilised at all levels – local, national and 
international, including through realization of 
ODA commitments agreed at the Monterrey Summit.


Internet access, for everybody and everywhere, 
especially among disadvantaged populations and in 
rural areas, must be considered as a global 
public good. Markets may not address the 
connectivity needs of these sections, and these 
areas. In many such areas, initial priority may 
need to be given to provide traditional ICTs - 
radio, TV, video and telephony - while developing 
conditions to bring complete internet connectivity to them.


Civil society was able to introduce significant 
sections in the Tunis commitment (para 35) and in 
Tunis agenda (para 21) on the importance of 
public policy in mobilizing resources for 
financing, which served to balance the pro-market 
orientation of much of the text on financing.


B. Human rights


Centrality of Human Rights

The Information Society must be based on human 
rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration 
of Human Rights. This includes civil and 
political rights, as well as social, economic and 
cultural rights. Human rights and development are 
closely linked. There can be no development 
without human rights, No human rights without 
development. This has been affirmed time and 
again, and was strongly stated in the Vienna 
World Conference of Human Rights in 1993. It was 
also affirmed in the WSIS 2003 Declaration of 
Principles. All legislation, politics, and 
actions involved in developing the global 
information society must respect, protect and 
promote human rights standards and the rule of law.

Despite the Geneva commitment to an Information 
Society respectful of human rights, there is 
still a long way ahead. A number of human rights 
were barely addressed in the Geneva Declaration 
of Principles. This includes the cross-cutting 
principle of non-discrimination, gender equality, 
and workers rights. The crucial right to privacy, 
which is the basis of autonomous personal 
development and thus at the root of the exertion 
of many other fundamental human rights, is only 
mentioned in the Geneva Declaration as part of "a 
global culture of cyber-security". In the Tunis 
Commitment, it has disappeared, to make room for 
extensive underlining of security needs, as if 
privacy were a threat to security, whereas the 
opposite is true: privacy is an essential 
requirement to security. Other rights were more 
explicitly addressed, but are de facto violated 
on a daily basis. This goes for freedom of 
expression, freedom of information, freedom of 
association and assembly, the right to a fair 
trial, the right to education, and the right to a 
standard of living adequate for the health

and well-being of the individual and his or her family.


Furthermore, as the second WSIS phase has 
amplified, one thing is formal commitment, 
another one is implementation. Post WSIS there is 
an urgent need to strengthen the means of human 
rights enforcement in the information society, to 
enhance human rights proofing of national 
legislation and practises, to strengthen 
education and awareness raising on rights-based 
development, to transform human rights standards 
into ICT policy recommendations; and to 
mainstream ICT issues into the global and 
regional human rights monitoring system – in 
summary: To move from declarations and 
commitments into action. Toward this end, an 
independent commission should be established to 
review national and international ICT regulations 
and practices and their compliance with 
international human rights standards. This 
commission should also address the potential 
applications of ICTs to the realization of human 
rights in the information society.


C. Internet Governance


Civil society is pleased with the decision to 
adopt its proposal for the creation an Internet 
governance Forum (IGF). We are also satisfied 
that it will have sufficient scope to deal with 
the issues that we believe need to be dealt with.


We are concerned, however, about the absence of 
details on how this forum will be created and on 
how it will be funded. We insist that the 
modalities of the forum be determined in full 
cooperation with civil. We would like to 
emphasize that the success of the IGF, as in most 
areas of Internet governance, will be impossible 
without the full participation of civil society. 
By full participation we mean not merely playing 
an advisory role, or being present, but in 
setting agendas and influencing outcomes.


The Tunis Agenda addressed the issue of political 
oversight of critical Internet resources. This, 
in itself, is an achievement. It is also 
important that governments realized the need for 
the development of a set of public policy 
principles that would frame political oversight of Internet resources.


It was important that governments realized that 
developing these principles should be a shared 
responsibility. It is, however, very unfortunate, 
that the Tunis Agenda suggests that governments 
are only willing to share this role and 
responsibility among themselves, in cooperation 
with international organisations. Civil society 
persists in its demand that public policy is not 
public if civil society is not involved in its formulation.


With regard to Paragraph 40 we are disappointed 
that there is no mention that efforts to combat 
cybercrime need to be excercised in the context 
of checks and balances provided by fundamental 
human rights, particularly freedom of expression and privacy.


To ensure that Internet governance and 
development take place in the public interest, it 
is necessary for people who use the Internet 
understand how the DNS is functioning, how IP 
addresses are allocated, what basic legal 
instruments exist in fields like cyber-crime, 
Intellectual Property Rights, eCommerce, 
e-government, and human rights. Therefore the 
ongoing creation of public awareness is the 
responsibility of everyone involved in the 
governance and development of the Internet and 
emerging information and communication platforms.


D. Global governance


A world that is increasingly connected faces a 
greater number of common issues which need to be 
addressed by global governance institutions and 
processes. We are concerned that during the WSIS 
it emerged that many governments of the world 
lack faith in, and appear to be unwilling to 
invest authority and resources in the existing multi-lateral system.


While civil society recognises that there are 
flaws and inefficiencies in the United Nations 
system, we believe strongly that it remains the 
most democratic intergovernmental forum, where 
rich and poor countries have equal rights to speak and participate.


In our understanding summits take place precisely 
to develop the principles that will underpin 
global public policy and governance structures; 
to address critical issues, and decide on 
appropriate responses to these issues. Shrinking 
global public policy spaces raises serious 
questions of the kind of global governance that 
we are headed towards, and what this signifies 
for people who are socially, economically and 
politically marginlised: people who most rely on 
public policy to protect their interests.


E. Participation


In the course of four years, as a result of 
constant pressure from civil society, 
improvements in civil society participation has 
been achieved, including speaking rights in 
official plenaries and sub-committees and 
ultimately right to observe in drafting groups. 
The Working Group on Internet Governance created 
an innovative format where governments and civil 
society actors sat on an equal footing and civil 
society actually carried a large part of the drafting load.


Due to the pressure of time and the need of 
governments to interact with CS actors in the 
Internet Governance field, the resumed session of 
PrepCom3 was in act the most open. We would like 
to suggest that this openess contributed to 
PrepCom3a, against all odds, reaching consensus.


WSIS has therefore demonstrated beyond any doubt 
the benefits of interaction between all 
stakeholders. The innovative rules of 
participation established in this process will be 
fully documented to provide in the future a new 
reference point and a benchmark for participants 
in UN organizations and processes.


Civil society thanks those governments of that 
greatly supported CS participation in the WSIS 
processes. We hope and expect that these 
processes of participation are taken further and 
strengthened, especially in more politically 
contested spaces of global policy making such as 
IPR, trade, environment and peace and disarmament.


We note that some governments of the South were 
not actively supportive of greater civil society 
participation as they believe it can lead to 
undue dominance of debate and opinions by 
international and northern civil society 
organisations. We believe that to change this 
perception, they should engage in efforts to 
strengthen the presence, independence and 
participation of CS constituencies in their own countries.


As for the period beyond the Summit, the Tunis 
documents establish clearly that the soon-to-be 
created Internet Governance Forum, and the future 
mechanisms for implementation and follow-up 
(including the revision of the mandate of the 
Commission on Science and Technology for 
Development) must take into account the multi-stakeholder approach.


We want to express concern at the vagueness of 
text referring to the role of civil society. 
Currently in almost every paragraph talking about 
multi-stakeholder participation, the words “in 
their respective roles and responsibilities” are 
used to limit the degree of multi-stakeholder 
participation. This limitation is due to the 
refusal of governments to recognize the full 
range of the roles and responsibilities of civil 
society. Instead of the reduced capabilities 
assigned in paragraph 35C of the Tunis Agenda 
that attempt to restrict civil society to a 
community role, governments should have referred 
to the list of roles and responsibilities 
assigned to civil society by the WGIG report. Specifically these are:


Awareness raising and capacity building (knowledge, training, skills sharing);

Promote various public interest objectives

Facilitate network building;

Mobilize citizens in democratic processes;

Bring perspectives of marginalized groups 
including for example excluded communities and grassroots activists;

Engage in policy processes;

Bring expertise, skills, experience and knowledge 
in a range of ICT policy areas contributing to 
policy processes and policies that are more 
bottom-up, people-centered and ­inclusive;

Research and development of technologies and standards;

Development and dissemination of best practices;

Helping to ensure that political and market 
forces are accountable to the needs of all members of society;

Encourage social responsibility and good governance practice;

Advocate for development of social projects and 
activities that are critical but may not be ‘fashionable’ or profitable;

Contribute to ­shaping visions of human-centred 
information societies based on human rights, 
sustainable development, social justice and empowerment.

Civil society has reason for concern that the few 
concessions obtained in the last few days under 
the pressure of time from countries refusing the 
emergence of a truly multi-stakeholder format 
will be at risk in the coming months.


Civil society actors therefore intend to remain 
actively mobilized. They need to proactively 
ensure that not only the needed future structures 
be established in a truly multi-stakeholder 
format but also that the discussions preparing 
their mandates are conducted in an open, 
transparent and inclusive manner, allowing 
participation of all stakeholders on an equal footing.



III. Other issues


Social Justice and People-Centred Development

[unedited text] WSIS had the single official 
mandate of addressing long-standing development 
problems in new ways that opened up with the ICT 
revolution. The summit was expected to identify 
and articulate new development possibilities and 
paradigms made possible in the information 
society, and to evolve public policy options for 
enabling and realising these opportunities. WSIS 
in general has failed to live up to these 
expectations. Especially the Tunis phase which 
was presented as the “summit of solutions” did 
not provide concrete achievements to meaningfully 
address development priorities.


Gender Equality

[unedited text] Considering the affirmation of 
unequivocal support for gender equality and 
women’s empowerment expressed in the Geneva 
Declaration of Principles and paying careful 
attention to Paragraph 23 of the Tunis 
Commitment, all government signatories must 
ensure that national policies, programmes and 
strategies developed and implemented to build a 
people-centred, inclusive and 
development-oriented Information Society 
demonstrate significant commitment to the 
principles of gender equality and women’s empowerment.


We emphasise that financial structures and 
mechanisms need to be geared towards addressing 
the gender divide, including the provision of 
adequate budgetary allocations. Comprehensive 
gender-disaggregated data and indicators have to 
be developed at national levels to enable and 
monitor this process. We urge all governments to 
take positive action to ensure institutions and 
practices, including those of the private sector, 
do not result in discrimination against women. 
Governments that are parties to CEDAW are in fact 
bound to this course of action.


Equal and active participation of women is 
essential, especially in decision-making. This 
includes all fora that will be established in 
relation to WSIS and the issues it has taken up. 
With that, there is a need for capacity building 
that is focussed at women’s engagement with the 
shaping of an Information Society at all levels, 
including policy making on infrastructure 
development, financing, and technology choice.


There is a need for real effort and commitment to 
transforming the masculinist culture embedded 
within existing structures and discourses of the 
Information Society which serves to reinforce 
gender disparity and inequality. Without full, 
material and engaged commitment to the principle 
of gender equality, women’s empowerment and 
non-discrimination, the vision of a just and 
equitable information society cannot be achieved.


Access to Knowledge and the Public Domain

[unedited text and does not include health text] 
Each generation of humankind is depending upon 
its predecessors to leave them with a livable, 
sustainable and stable environment. The 
environment we were discussing throughout the 
WSIS is the public domain of global knowledge. 
Like our planet with its natural resources, that 
domain is the heritage of all humankind and the 
reservoir from which new knowledge is created. 
Limited monopolies, such as copyrights and 
patents were originally conceived as tools to 
serve that public domain of global knowledge to the benefit of

humankind. Whenever society grants monopolies, a 
delicate balance must be struck: careless 
monopolization will make the our heritage 
unavailable to most people, to the detriment of all.


In the discussions we had throughout the past 
years, it became quite clear that this balance 
has been upset by the interests of the 
rights-holding industry as well as the 
digitalization. Humankind now has the power to 
instantaneously share knowledge in real-time and 
without loss. Civil Society has worked hard to 
defend that ability for all of humankind. Free 
Software is an integral part of this 
ability:Software is the cultural technique and 
most regulator of the digital age. Access to it 
determines who may participate in a digital world.


Access to health information

[unedited text] Access to health information and 
knowledge is essential to collective and 
individual human development and has been 
identified as a critical factor in the public 
physical and mental healthcare crises around the 
world. Therefore, it is essential that healthcare 
systems include a holistic approach that 
addresses the prevention, treatment, and 
promotion of mental and physical health care for 
all people and in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).


Traditional and newer ICTs such as the Internet, 
telemedicine and telecenters will facilitate the 
expansion of physical and mental health expertise 
and scientific knowledge to benefit disease 
stricken, as well as traumatized populations 
affected by war, terrorism, disaster and other 
events. The implementation of ICT systems for 
physical and mental health information and 
services must be a two-way path recognizing 
cultural and community norms and values.


Privacy of health information is paramount for 
the well-being of all nations. Therefore sound 
public policy must be developed to protect the 
privacy of people's physical and mental health 
information, as well as effective technological 
security measures. It is essential that healthcare

specialists participate in the development of 
public policy addressing privacy and other 
healthcare issues affecting healthcare information and delivery systems.]


Education and research

[unedited] If we want future generations to 
understand the real basis of the Technical 
Culture of the Digital Age, the whole « open » 
paradigm has to be taken in as a full package, 
especially using free software and open content 
and courseware as one of the best ways we can 
recommend. If not, they will become only users 
and consumers of information technologies, 
instead of active participants and well informed 
citizens in the information society. Free 
Software and open courseware are the most 
emancipatory choices for all education-based 
activities as it encourages schooling of the mind 
over product schooling, while upholding the 
scientific principles of independence and creativity.


We are happy that universities, museums, 
archives, libraries have been recognized as 
playing an important role as public institutions 
and with the community of researchers and 
academics, but telecenters are missing. Community 
informatics, telecenters and human resources like 
computer professionals have to be promoted, so 
that ICTs serve training and not training serve ICTs.


While WSIS has recognised the importance of open 
source software, it has not asserted the 
significance of this choice for development. It 
is silent on other issues like open content

(which goes beyond open access to academic 
publications), new open telecom paradigms and 
community-owned infrastructure as important development enablers.


The WSIS fails to recognise that ICTD investments 
have multiplier effects on all sectors of 
development, and therefore require special 
provisions. Open source and free modalities are 
presented in the same paragraph as proprietary 
software “ in accordance with their interests and 
with the needs to have reliable services and 
implement effective programmes for their people » 
but the same paragraph reiterates « the 
importance of proprietary software in the markets 
of the countries ». so it defeats the purpose 
somewhat and shows free software as ancillary, 
wit the further risk of hybrid platforms and no 
mention that there should be no patents for interoperability with open source.


The two WSIS action lines on education and 
capacity building are not really linked to ensure 
they work together in the same direction. This 
increases the risk for duplicates, for scattering 
of finances and financing mechanisms. There is no 
clear indication on where they are going; no 
indication that they should build critical minds 
for the sake of creativity; no indication that it 
should be built on free software, the open 
paradigm and the public domain. On the contrary, 
the WSIS documents in general emphasize business 
and private sector role and the reference to 
“free flow of information, ideas, and knowledge » 
is not satisfactory and should be replaced with 
the whole open paradigm tools and ressources.


Media

We are pleased that the principle of freedom of 
expression has been reaffirmed in the WSIS II 
texts and that they echo much of the language of 
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights. While we are also pleased that the Tunis 
Commitment recognises the place of the media in a 
new Information Society, this should never have been in question.


In future, representatives of the media should be 
assured a place in all public fora considering 
development of the Internet and all other 
relevant aspects of the Information Society. As 
key actors in the Information Society, the media 
must have a place at the table, and this must be 
fully recognized both by governments and by Civil Society itself.


While recognizing media and freedom of 
expression, the WSIS documents are weak on 
offering support for developing diversity in the 
media sector. They specifically neglect a range 
of projects and initiatives which are of 
particular value for civil society: Community 
media, grassroots and civil society-based media, 
and telecenters. Community-based and 
community-owned media projects empower people for 
the independent and creative participation in 
knowledge-building and information-sharing. They 
represent the prime means for large parts of the 
world population to participate in the 
information society and should be an integral 
part of implementation of the goals of the Geneva Declaration.


Cultural Diversity

[unedited text]

The WSIS process has failed to introduce cultural 
and linguistic diversity as a cross-cutting issue 
in the information society. The information 
society and its core elements - knowledge, 
information, communication and the information 
and communication technologies (ICTs) together 
with related rules and standards - are cultural 
concepts and expressions. Accordingly, culturally 
defined approaches, protocols, proceedings and 
obligations have to be respected and culturally 
appropriate applications developed and promoted. 
In order to foster and promote cultural diversity 
it must be ensured that no one has to be mere 
recipient of Western knowledge and treatment. 
Therefore development of such cultural elements 
of the Information Society must involve strong 
participation of all cultural communities.


IV. Where to go from here – our Tunis commitment

[section to be developed based on following proposed structure]


Element one:

How CS is going to structure itself and continue 
leveraging on the processes and structures that 
were developed during the WSIS process (caucuses, CSB etc)

we will organise at a date to be determined to 
launch the process of creating a CS charter

Element two:

How CS is going to structure itself to engage 
with the IG forum {wait for outcome of IG caucus 
meeting – whether a specific WG would be setup to 
make recommendations on the modalities of functioning of the future IG forum)

Element three:

In order to ensure that the future implementation 
and follow-up mechanisms respect the spirit and 
letter of the tunis documents and that 
governments uphold the commitments they have made 
during this second phase of the WSIS in terms of 
implementing a multi-stakeholder approach, mechanisms will be created to ensure

proactive monitoring at the national level of the 
implementation by govs of their implementation of the Geneva plan of action

structured interaction with all UN agencies and 
international organisations to ensure that they 
integrate the WSIS objectives in their own 
workplan, and put in place effective mechanisms 
for multistakeholder interaction

CS believes that the information society is 
complex social political phenomenon and it should 
be reduced to a technology centred perspective. 
The Commission on science and technology will 
have to significantly change it's mandate and 
composition to adequately address the needs of 
being an effective followup mechanism for WSIS

that not only the reformed commission on science 
and technology for development becomes a truly MS 
commission for the information society, but also, 
that the process to revise it's mandate, 
composition and agenda is done in a fully open and inclusive