[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] Today's Subcommittee A meeting

[Jeanette Hofmann]

Hi Laina,

I guess you covered it quite well. Civil society structures follows that 
of the prepcom. Since the work on the final documents for Tunis are now 
structured along two subcommittees (A for Internet Governance, B for 
"follow up"), the Internet Governance has become a channel for all input 
relating to the scope of subcommittee A.
The IG caucus meets every day at 2.30 pm in room E 3056 on the third 
floor. We are now in the stage where we begin to collect concrete 
language from the various caucuses, which are to be included in our own 
draft. We want to contribute our statement on Friday afternoon to ensure 
that it will be taken into consideration by the governments' drafting 
group. (Not sure I mentioned this, Amb Khan has not appointed a drafting 
group yet. Some people expect this to happen towards the weekend.)

jeanette

Laina Raveendran Greene wrote:
>  
> Thanks Jeanette for that detailed input on the proceedings of this morning
> and for all that great work. 
> 
> I was wondering if you may also wish to explain to this group, the "new
> working methods" as decided by the content and themes plenary. You did touch
> upon this at the end of your mail, but perhaps reiterating it could ensure
> everyone is on the same page. From what I understand, the idea is to mirror
> the workings of the governmental discussions, i.e. now the Internet
> Governance caucus has become sort of the Subcommittee A working group for
> civil society inputs coordinated by you, and there is a new caucus for
> Subcomittee B, which Betrand de La Chapelle is coordinating.
> 
> The idea from what I understood it, is an attempt to get a more organised
> effort from civil society to make a better impact on this PrepCom 3 process.
> Thanks Jeanette and Adam for clarifying how the various caucuses can
> participate in IG caucus verbally and for distributing the IG Caucus inputs
> to the WGIG process to be used as a basis for further discussion. I also
> believe the consistent time slot 2.30pm to 4.30pm in a consistent room, Room
> E3056/58, combined with this mailing list will keep the process transparent,
> efficient and effective for many of us new comers.
> 
> Perhaps you or Adam may wish to further clarify to others, since many may
> not have been in the room either last night or tonight or are even here in
> Geneva for that matter.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Laina Raveendran Greene
> Values and Ethics Caucus member
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
> [mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Jeanette Hofmann
> Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 10:31 AM
> To: plenary at wsis-cs.org; governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: [governance] Today's Subcommittee A meeting
> 
> Hi,
> 
> as I just learned from Rik, I am supposed to give an overview on the meeting
> of Subcommittee A. While I took some notes, they are not half as systematic
> as those Rik provided on yesterday's plenary meeting. 
> Frankly, I would be more sorry about this if anything of great relevance had
> happened in this meeting.
> Today's meeting was devoted to general comments on the WGIG report. The
> governments spoke for a bit more than two hours. None of the statements was
> surprising. Most governments reiterated what they have said all along. The
> perhaps nicest statement came from Norway. While the delegate was talking I
> considered asking him to join the civil society Internet Governance caucus
> :-)
> 
> Here are my notes from the Norway statement:
> 
> Norway: overarching principle, allow the Internet to grow, need to ensure
> stability, appreciate groups consensus; welcome that IG definition is not
> only about root zone but also security, crime, capacity building, human
> rights.
> There is no global forum for dialogue, need for new model, merits ne forms
> of institutional coordination. Need for forum with full involvement,
> governments, private sector, civil society; should be linked to UN, allows
> for meaningful participation of all, incl. 
> development areas.
> Forum should be designed lightweight, efficient, IG should build on existing
> strctures, but with stronger recogniztion of public policy issues; welcome
> working group to recognize freedom of expression as one of the most
> important public policy issues!
> 
> China commented almost exclusively, and in a very emotional way, on
> yesterday's plenary discussion on the accredition of the chinese human
> rights group.
> The US statement followed the Chinese statement. It didn't respond to the
> Chinese intervention. It was fairly general and didn't contribute anyting
> concrete.
> 
> Civil society used its 15 min. time slot today for 5 interventions. Adam has
> already posted them. We will have another 15 minutes, which we can divide
> between Thursday and Friday. We have no speaking time left for tomorrow.
> 
>  From what we picked up today, the whole week will be devoted to statements
> on several parts of the WGIG report. The actual drafting will not start
> before the weekend. Amb. Khan asked all stakeholders to deliver in the
> coming days written text ("language") for the final Tunis document. In other
> words, the time for comments is more or less over. We have to draft input
> now for the final documents.
> 
> The Internet Governance caucus thus asks all other working groups and
> caucuses to deliver text that shall be included in our contribution to the
> Tunisia documents. The basis for our contributions should be the civil
> society position paper on the WGIG report.
> This position paper can be found here:
> 
> http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/co55.doc
> 
> To conclude, what we have to do in the following days is to choose speakers
> and topics for the second speaking slot, and to draft text for our
> contribution for the final documents.
> 
> Hopefully, I didn't forget too much and I don't sound too confused, jeanette
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance
> 
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance