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

[estherjoly at fr.inter.net]

Thanks  you for your observation.


I was thinking, that we should have to propose a civil society observatory
to have our own report and audit of the funds managing ( Perhaps it's not
the fair english expression : sorry :-))
*
*Esther

Chun Eung Hwi wrote:
> 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."
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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