[WSIS CS-Plenary] Civil society shut out of the drafting groups

[carlos a. afonso]

Grande Vittorio, I do hope you can mobilize the EU delegation on this.
To begin with, there is the matter of precedent -- in several of the
draft groups there has already been more flexibility. Secondly, a
decision like this works especially against CS of the countries which
decided not to accredit civil society members as formal members of their
delegations. Yet another form of discrimination...

[]s fraternos

--c.a.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Vittorio Bertola" <vb at bertola.eu.org>
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org, governance at lists.cpsr.org
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:09:10 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Civil society shut out of the drafting groups

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> _______________________________________
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> Following up to my earlier message on the matter (report from
> drafting
> group III)... today at 1:45pm, at the start of drafting group IV,
> China
> and Brazil, supported by Iran, took the floor and asked the Chair
> (now
> Canada) whether further instructions had been received on civil
> society
> and private sector participation in the drafting groups, and in any
> case
> pointing out that according to phase I procedures and instructions
> given
> at the governmental bureau meeting, non-gov persons should have been
> sent
> out of the room after making an initial statement, and that it was
> highly
> inappropriate for the Chair not to have managed to get proper
> instructions
> from Amb. Khan to this extent.
> 
> The Chair repeatedly proposed to keep the compromise reached in the
> morning, to let non-gov persons assist silently and respond if asked.
> US,
> UK/EU and Australia spoke in favour of keeping this procedure, and in
> general noted that non-gov participation is highly beneficial, and no
> actual conclusion had been reached, not even at the bureau.
> 
> In the end, the Chair asked Brazil and China how serious they were;
> Brazil
> said that it could live with the Chair's compromise; China however
> insisted. Thus, the Chair asked the people from civil society and
> private
> sector to give a brief statement and then leave. Ralf courteously
> protested the decision before giving the statement and leaving.
> 
> I can say that the Italian delegation is absolutely unhappy with the
> Chair's decision, and that the issue will likely brought up at the EU
> Coordination meeting tonight at 6pm. In the meantime, civil society
> should
> decide whether and how to react.
> -- 
> vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a]
> bertola.eu.org]<------
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