[WSIS CS-Plenary] sub-committee A - ongoing issues

[Elizabeth Carll, PhD]

Adam and all,

Very useful synopsis.  With the rhetoric from governments about
transparency, every government that mentioned transparency in any statements
etc, must agree to number 3 or really nothing more than disingenuous
rhetoric. This should be a strong lobbying point.  Transparency and closed
doors are contradictory.

Even if the 3rd option is not agreed to, this point must be pressed and
publicized for all future PrepComs and summits.  This point should not be
negotiable from a CS perspective,  as there is no transparency with out at
the very least CS, PS and international organizations  able to observe the
proceedings.

Perhaps some very basic issues which are problematic and cross cut all
summits and PrepComs should become a strong focal point for future
continuous lobbying.  (eg, including an interactive dialogue with CS prior
to the UNGA meeting in June.)

Appreciate all that those onsite are doing on behalf of  CS.

Elizabeth

Dr. Elizabeth Carll
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies;
UN NGO Committee on Mental Health;
Communications Coordination Committee for the UN
Tel: 1631-754-2424
Fax: 1631-754-5032
ecarll at optonline.net

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
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Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 12:14 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] sub-committee A - ongoing issues


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Hi,

As you'll have seen from Jeremy Shtern and Robert Guerra's very
helpful notes and blogs, Sub-Committee A (Internet governance) got
complicated this morning.  I'll try to explain what I think is
happening and implications for civil society.

After this morning's general discussion, at about 12 noon, Amb Khan
(chair) suggested that drafting groups should be created to work on
text for the rest of the process. He suggested these drafting groups
would start work tomorrow. To help the work of the drafters, tomorrow
morning the chair will distribute a text of the Chapter on Internet
governance (perhaps his text will be online by 10AM Geneva local
time?) He was very clear about the status of all the papers that have
been made available to date:  all are for our information, all are to
aid discussion, they have no official status.

So the purpose of the text the chair will deliver tomorrow is to
focus attention on issues and to stimulate discussion.

The meeting accepted that the chair would submit a text, they should
accept it tomorrow without complaint. (some will remember the
problems we had at an earlier prepcom when Adama Samassekou tried to
introduce a non-paper... it caused all kind of trouble.  This should
not happen tomorrow.)

Most governments said only a limited number of drafting groups should
be created.  Delegations do not have enough members for many
additional groups. There was no decision on the number of groups, but
it will be only a few.

So it was agreed there will be drafting groups.

The main issue then was rules of procedure for these drafting groups.

Participation of observers was a contentious.  The outcome is we are
now faced with three options

(1.) Observers will not be able to participate in drafting groups.
Intergovernmental only.
(2.) Observers will be able to make written or spoken comments at the
start of a drafting group session and will then be asked to leave.
(3.) Observers will be able to make written or spoken comments at the
start of a drafting group session and will be able to stay as silent
observers.

Observers of course want option (3.)  My feeling is that we might get
(2.) but (1.) is not unlikely.  I hope I am wrong.

No decision was made today, but the governments have been asked to
decide overnight.

Option 1 and 2 will be very hard for us. The first time we would see
text from drafting groups would be when it is presented to the
Plenary. Under rules of procedure for the prepcom observers are
allowed to participate in Plenary and speak, but we must submit our
comments for each day before the Plenary session starts.  Therefore
we will not be able to comment on text until the day after it comes
from the drafting group, and by that time government's in Plenary
will have completed comments on the text we observers are only just
beginning to address.  Options 1 and 2 would make our comments and
presence largely irrelevant.

Governments suggested that civil society and private sector might
appoint a few liaisons to work closely with the government chairs of
the drafting groups, bringing information to their stakeholders.  But
as the drafting groups are likely to be working late into the day
(perhaps night), this would not help us prepare timely and therefore
relevant comments to plenary.

Hopefully we will get option 3 tomorrow.

Thanks,

Adam
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