[WSIS CS-Plenary] Notes on meeting with Amb. Karklins on October 12th

[Bertrand de La Chapelle]

Sorry for not reporting earlier. Here are the main points discussed with
Amb. Karklins on October 12th. Renate Bloem was also present.

 The purpose of the meeting was to address :

- logistical issues related to the intersession and the resumed PrepCom in
Tunis

- Amb. Karklins general vision on the summit process and achievable
objectives in Tunis

- CS positions regarding follow-up and implementation

 *On the intersession*

 J. Karklins confirmed that CS actors will be given badges to access the
Palais des Nations during the intersession in order to be able to interact
with governmental delegations. The Executive Secretariat will take care of
this and is in contact with the Security of the Palais. I stressed the
importance of CS having nominative badges with their organization and not
simple visitor badges that would symbolically amount to denying CS right to
be there.

 The PrepCom President confirmed his willingness to hold a daily interactive
meeting with CS representatives every morning between 9:15 and 10.

 He also agreed to have CS comments on parts one and four distributed to
delegations as an attachment to his own document if we wish to do so.

 *On the resumed PrepCom in **Tunis***

 It most probably will not take place in the Kram Center, but the precise
location is not fixed yet. A 600 seats room is considered and PrepCom rules
will apply. He agreed that making sure that seats are available for CS is
essential, but believes that this should not be a problem, given that full
governmental delegations will probably only arrive for the summit itself.
More information will be given in the coming weeks and the key actor in
charge for that aspect will be the Secretariat.

 *On the objectives of the Intersession*

 President Karklins reiterated his objective of closing Political Chapeau
and parts 1 and 4 during the Intersession in order to leave the more
contentious issue of Internet Governance for the resumed PrepCom.

 He stressed that, after the Tunis Summit, all documents adopted in Genevaand
Tunis will be viewed together as a single set of documents. Many aspects of
the Political Chapeau are strongly inspired (or even "recycled") from the
Geneva Declaration. As a consequence, if problems arise on some contentious
issues – in particular Human Rights – a rational solution would be either to
drop them altogether (as they were addressed already) or to repeat the
formulations agreed in Geneva.

 I stressed the importance of at least reiterating the Geneva Formulations,
given the obvious reaction of the press in the context of the summit if
paragraphs on human rights and Freedom of Expression were present in the
preliminary drafts of political chapeau and absent form the final text.

 *On Internet Governance*

 The rising visibility of this debate in the press was mentioned. Amb.
Karklins hopes the coverage of the Summit will become broader and not focus
only on this issue.

 A key question in the resumed PrepCom will be what document becomes the
basis for discussion : can the present Chair's "food for thought" be
accepted as a basis or rather something along the lines of the
"cross-regional" proposal (Argentina and others) ?

 A lot will depend on whether the different actors are willing to have a
positive outcome in Tunis or not. The US government has showed some openness
on discussing issues in existing forums and on recognizing a legitimate
interest of governments in managing their ccTLDs. But the issue of the
root-zone file and oversight is a non-starter and the US government probably
does not feel it needs to start negotiations on that point. Whether an
agreement can be found around the creation of a Forum and postponing the
discussion on the root-zone file is not clear.

 In any case, a Forum would not be tasked with any implementation but only
provide a space to raise issues and find the appropriate framework to
address them.

 *On follow-up*

 Amb. Karklins confirmed that follow-up could be structured around the three
legs already mentionned: implementation, evaluation and policy debate. Each
agency, upon decision of their respective governing bodies, will integrate
the WSIS outcomes in their activities and the whole WSIS follow-up should
become an integral part of the follow-up framework of UN Conferences,
particularly resolution 57/270 B.

 Two elements were highlighted in response :

- WSIS is the first summit to devote two full years to the key question of
follow-up and the establishment of a multi-stakeholder approach; the result
of these two years cannot be only to request everyone to do what they should
normally do;

- Resolution 57/270B was adopted only because implementation and follow-up
of past conference were recognized as insufficient; it is a only minimal set
of rules to guarantee that at least something happens; it does not preclude
in anyway – quite on the contrary – to do better; in particular, there is no
reason for the WSIS not to be able to do what other Summits have done : set
up a dedicated commission or reform an existing one to help coordinate
actors

 He expressed his vision of a two-layer mechanism : the inter-agency (ie
intergovernmental) implementation and follow-up and, on top of it, a
multi-stakeholder coordination. But he did not elaborate much.

   Responding to comments on the importance of establishing a truly
multi-stakeholder follow-up mechanism and the unique opportunity this WSIS
process provides to pioneer an innovative framework within the UN system, he
strongly stressed that, given the present situation in the UN system, a
completely new body (ie a Commission for the Information Society) is out of
the question : governments will not accept it.

 On the other hand, he recognized that requesting the UN SG after Tunis to
make proposals on coordination in time for the ECOSOC meeting in July (as
suggested by the EU presidency during PrepCom3), could potentially be a way
to move forward and avoid a deadlock and an inter-agency battle.

 But in any case, the PrepCom President is at the service of governments and
can only do what they want to do. Such an approach has to come from the
participants and gather enough support if it is to prevail.

 *On the structure of the text*

 Amb. Karklins saw no objection against somewhat restructuring the text,
merging all or part of Chapter one into Chapter four to make the Tunis
Declaration more readable and coherent. (Note : this was subsequently
formally proposed by him in his Friday mail).

 In general, the discussion was very open and Amb. Karklins is very keen on
seeing an acceptable solution emerge from the intersession on Follow-up, in
order to clear the way for the resumed PrepCom to focus on the single issue
of Internet Governance.

 That'all folks.

 Best

 Bertrand
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20051017/01a9bca0/attachment.html