[WSIS CS-Plenary] Unofficial personal report of Sub-com II Yesterday Afternoon session

[Chun Eung Hwi]

Yesterday afternoon, I was in Sub-Committee II meeting. In my view, that
time was one of highlights of this 3rd PrepCom of WSIS, because many
governments showed up what their positions were for a few most contentious
paragraphs of the draft Declaration of Principle Document. My observation
is that in a word, it presented a very ruthlessly cold reality of the
present world as it is. This is one unofficial personal note, but not a
monitoring report of civil society group. However, this short note could
be helpful for your understanding what is happening in PrepCom III of
WSIS.

Afternoon session dealt with para. 34 to 54 ( last part Declaration of of
Principle Document) - here a few contentious issues which were
representing the most conflicting views of governments such as IPR,
internet governance, and financial source proposal of solidarity fund are
contained. Most comments of governments were very short because for most
governmental delegations, only a few modification seemed to be required to
the draft document, but they felt to show up the necessity of clarifying
what their positions were on those contentious issues - contrasting views
were very clear-cut or the draft text have some sharply contrasting
bracketed alternative phrases. 

1. Regarding solidarity fund (ph. 53)- UNESCO mentioned that they don't
want to make new fund for ICT support and the existing financial
mechanisms like World Bank or IBRD and etc. should be used for this
purposes. And this position was strongly supported by most advanced
countries including the U.S., Japan, Canada. Canada delegate added that we
had so many financial mechanisms and they are supporting many ICT
development projects. Whereas most African countries and developing
countries strongly supported the proposal of solidarity fund which could
be used for building up the communication infrastructure of developing
countries. 

2. Regarding internet governance (ph. 44 and alternative phs. 1 or 2)  -
Draft document have three options - contentious points are two - one is
whether new governing body should come up or not and whether it is
international or intergovernmental one, the other one is whether the
policy authority of country code top level domain should be the sovereign
right of each country or not. Option one of "international,
intergovernmental organization" (definitely means ITU) and ccTLD policy
authority in the hands of national sovereignty (alternative 1st of 44) was
supported by Middle East countries including Syria, Vietnam, Indonesia and
many African countries. Whereas the other option demanding only more
transparency and geographical diversity (alternative 2nd of 44) and
seemingly supporting the present ICANN was supported by Japan, Malaysia
(the present Chair of Government Advisory Committee of ICANN is Malaysian)  
and finally EU. China chose the present article of 44 which is being
supported by most countries but Chinese delegate added cautiously that
they want to use the word of "international" rather than
"intergovernmental" organization. (the present text has the bracketed
words of [intergovernmental/international]. The chair of ICANN GAC -
Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi clarified recently as follows - "International by
definition means everyone is involved, from governments to private sector
and civil society. Whereas intergovernmental gives an indication that only
governments are involved and not necessarily the people.'' (Refer to
http://news.com.com/2102-1028_3-5077101.html ) 

3. Regarding intellectual property right (ph. 40c) : Most advanced
countries and even some developing countries argued to add one more
sentence implying that the existing intellectual property right regimes
like WTO TRIPs or WIPO treaty should be kept. Most developing countries
including Cuba, Brazil, India and Indonesia supported ph. 40C emphasizing
the balance between owners and users of intellectual property. 

Walking out from the meeting place after the end of afternoon session, I
met one friend of civil society group and I said to him "Wake up from your
dream! It could be helpful for your healthy."


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Chun Eung Hwi
General Secretary, PeaceNet | phone:     (+82)  2-2166-2205
Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81   |   pcs:     (+82) 019-259-2667
Seoul, 158-600, Korea  	    | eMail:   chun at peacenet.or.kr
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