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A dispute over control of the Internet threatened to derail the conference. However, a last-minute decision to leave control in the hands of the United States for the time being avoided a major blow-up.
A dispute over control of the Internet threatened to derail the conference. However, a last-minute decision to leave control in the hands of the United States for the time being avoided a major blow-up.


French reporter [[Robert Ménard]], the president of [[Reporters sans frontières]], was refused admission to Tunisia for the conference because of his participation in the occupation of the Tunisian office of tourism in Paris in 2001. The occupation was organized in protest of the arrest in Tunisia of human-rights activist [[Sihem Bensedrine]]. Ménard was told that he was not welcome in Tunisia. He is reportedly under judicial instruction and can enter the country only if called by a magistrate.
French reporter [[Robert Ménard]], the president of [[Reporters sans frontières]], was refused admission to Tunisia for phase two of the Summit because of his participation in the occupation of the Tunisian office of tourism in Paris in 2001. The occupation was organized in protest of the arrest in Tunisia of human-rights activist [[Sihem Bensedrine]]. Ménard was told that he was not welcome in Tunisia. He is reportedly under judicial instruction and can enter the country only if called by a magistrate.

The summit itself was marred by criticism of Tunisia for allowing attacks on journalists and human rights defenders to occur in the days leading up to the event. A French journalist for "Libération" was stabbed and beaten by unidentified men after he reported on local human rights protesters. A Belgian television crew was harassed and forced to hand over footage of Tunisian dissidents, while local human rights defenders were roughed up and prevented from organising a meeting with international civil society groups.


==External links==
==External links==

Revision as of 05:16, 27 November 2005

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a UN-sponsored conference about information and communication. The second phase took place November 16-18, 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia. It resulted in agreement on the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, and the creation of the Internet Governance Forum.

The summit's first part took place in December 2003 in Geneva. The summit process began with the first "Prepcom" in July 2002. The last Prepcom, held from 19-30 September 2005 in Geneva, ended without securing final agreement on "Internet Governance", with the US rejecting a EU proposal to put in place a new cooperation model that would end US dominance over vital parts of the Internet.

In 2003 at Geneva, delegates from 175 countries took part in the first phase of WSIS in Geneva where they adopted a Declaration of Principles. This suggested what was seen as the route to an information society which is accessible to all and based on shared knowledge. In a linked Plan of Action aimed at a goal of bringing 50 percent of world's population online by 2015. But it did not spell out any specifics of how this would be achieved. Besides, the Geneva summit left unresolved more controversial issues like the question of Internet governance and funding.

In January 2002, the UN General Assembly endorsed the proposal for a global summit on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) issues. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) took the lead in organizing the event, which includes the participation of more than 50 heads of state. WSIS is also related to UNESCO.

In November 2002, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a Challenge to Silicon Valley to create the computers and communications systems that would enable villages to leapfrog several generations of technology and enter the Information Age directly. This would provide the technical basis for WSIS discussions. In fact, many of the most important developments in ICT for development (ICT4D) have taken place outside Silicon Valley.

When the 2003 summit failed to agree on the future of Internet governance, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) was formed to come up with ideas on how to progress.

"Civil Society"

A great number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scientific institutions, community media and others are participating as "civil society" in the preparations for the summit as well as the WSIS itself. They try to establish the broadest possible participation of civil society groups at the summit and to push civil society issues onto the agenda, including human rights, people-centred development, freedom of speech and press freedom.

At the same time, there is plenty of WSIS-related discussion outside the official conferences. Workshops on the themes of the summit were held e.g. at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, and plans are shaping up for alternative events outside and parallel to the official WSIS summit.

In Germany, a WSIS working group initiated by the Network New Media and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, has been meeting continuously since summer 2002. This group has gradually developed into a broader Germany-wide civil society coordination for the WSIS.

Some civil society groups have expressed alarm that the 2005 phase of the WSIS is being held in Tunisia, a country with serious human rights violations [1]. A fact-finding mission to Tunisia in January 2005 by the Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 14 members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, found serious cause for concern about the current state of freedom of expression and of civil liberties in the country, including gross restrictions on freedom of the press, media, publishing and the Internet.

The coalition has published a 60-page report that recommends steps the Tunisian government needs to take to bring the country in line with international human rights standards [2]. At the 3rd WSIS Preparatory Commmittee meeting in Geneva in September 2005, the TMG launched an update to the report that found no improvements in the human rights situation [3].

One critique

In a press statement released 14 November 2003 [4] the Civil Society group warned about a deadlock, already setting in on the very first article of the declaration, where governments are not able to agree on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the common foundation of the summit declaration. It identified two main problems:

1. On the issue of correcting imbalances in riches, rights and power, governments do not agree on even the principle of a financial effort to overcome the so-called "digital divide", which was precisely the objective when the summit process was started in 2001. But the 'digital divide' concept was also under criticism of the civil society. Groups such as FFII rejected the term.

2. In its view, not even the basis of human life in dignity and equality, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, finds support as the basis for the Information Society. Governments are not able to agree on a commitment to basic human right standards as the basis for the Information Society, most prominent in this case being the freedom of expression.

At Tunis, 2005

Just on the eve of the Tunis event (2005, November), the Association for Progressive Communications came out with its stand. APC is an international network of civil society organisations -- whose goal is to empower and support groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), including the internet

APC said it had participated extensively in the internet governance process at the World Summit on Information Society. It says: Out of this participation and in collaboration with other partners, including members of the WSIS civil society internet governance caucus, APC has crystallized a set of recommendations with regard to internet governance ahead of the final Summit in Tunis in November 2005.

APC proposed specific actions in each of the following five areas:

  • The transformation of ICANN into a global body with full authority over DNS management, and an appropriate form of accountability to its stakeholders in government, private sector and civil society;
  • The initiation of a multi-stakeholder convention on internet governance and universal human rights that will codify the basic rights applicable to the internet, which will be legally binding in international law with particular emphasis on clauses in the universal declaration of human rights specifically relevant to the internet, such as rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and privacy.
  • Ensuring internet access is universal and affordable. APC argued: "The internet is a global public space that should be open and accessible to all on a non-discriminatory basis. The internet, therefore, must be seen as a global public infrastructure. In this regard we recognize the internet to be a global public good and access to it is in the public interest, and must be provided as a public provision."
  • Measures to promote capacity building in "developing" countries with regard to increasing "developing" country participation in global public policy forums on internet governance.

United States priorities

In a document released 3 December 2003 [5] the United States delegation to the WSIS advocated a strong private sector and rule of law as the critical foundations for development of national information and communication technologies (ICT). Ambassador David Gross, the US coordinator for international communications and information policy, outlined what he called "the three pillars" of the US position in a briefing to reporters 3 December.

  1. As nations attempt to build a sustainable ICT sector, commitment to the private sector and rule of law must be emphasized, Gross said, "so that countries can attract the necessary private investment to create the infrastructure."
  2. A second important pillar of the US position was the need for content creation and intellectual property rights protection in order to inspire ongoing content development.
  3. Insuring security on the internet, in electronic communications and in electronic commerce was the third major priority for the US. "All of this works and is exciting for people as long as people feel that the networks are secure from cyber attacks, secure in terms of their privacy," Gross said.

As the Geneva phase of the meeting drew closer, one proposal that was gaining attention was to create an international fund to provide increased financial resources to help lesser-developed nations expand their ICT sectors. The "voluntary digital solidarity fund" was a proposal put forth by the president of Senegal, but it was not one that the United States could currently endorse, Gross said.

Gross said the United States was also achieving broad consensus on the principle that a "culture of cybersecurity" must develop in national ICT policies to continue growth and expansion in this area. He said the last few years had been marked by considerable progress as nations update their laws to address the galloping criminal threats in cyberspace. "There's capacity-building for countries to be able to criminalize those activities that occur within their borders...and similarly to work internationally to communicate between administrations of law enforcement to track down people who are acting in ways that are unlawful," Gross said.

Many governments are very concerned that various groups use U.S.-based servers to spread anti-semitic, nationalist, or regime critical messages. This controversy is a consequence of the American position on free speech which does not consider speech as criminal without direct appeals to violence. The United States argues that giving the control of Internet domain names to international bureaucrats and governments may lead to massive censorship that could destroy the freedom of the Internet as a public space.

Some media responses

Brenda Zulu -- identified as a journalist specialising in reporting on Information Communication Technologies for Development -ICT4D- issues -- has this report on AllAfrica.com that is titled WSIS Set to Begin in Tunis As SADC Lobbies Countries To Diffuse The Dakar Paper.

Zulu explains that the (Dakar) resolution "generated a lot of discussion since it was very different from the Accra resolution, which advocated change from the status quo where Zambia participated in the Africa WSIS in Accra. The Dakar resolutions, in the main, advocated the status quo although it did not refer to internationalisation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)."

The Jamaica Observer has this column which sees Cyberspace as backyard for the new 'Monroe Doctrine'. [The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed that the Americas should be closed to future European colonization and free from European interference in sovereign countries' affairs. The Doctrine was conceived by its authors, especially John Quincy Adams, as a proclamation by the United States of moral opposition to colonialism, but has subsequently been re-interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including by President Theodore Roosevelt as a license for the U.S. to practice its own form of colonialism.]

From India, The Financial Express interviews Nitin Desai, who is special advisor to the United Nations Secretary General.

Desai is quoted saying, "Our main goal is to find ways for developing countries to gain better access to the Internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs), helping them improve their life standards right from their knowledge base to their work culture, and spread awareness about diseases and other crucial issues. This will aim to bridge the huge communication technology and infrastructure gap existing currently in the world. This will include connecting villages, community access points, schools and universities, research centres, libraries, health centres and hospitals, and local and central government departments. Besides looking at the first two years of implementation of the Plan of Action after the Geneva summit, the Tunis episode will seek to encourage the development of content meant to empower the nations."

He says: "The way India has made use of IT, fetching the country not only profits, but a huge percentage of employed people, it has been really impressive." My view: it's a shame that we in India have so many IT professionals, but these skills get used so much for the export-dollar, and hardly at all (except in a spillover manner) to tackle the huge isuses that a billion seeking a better life have to daily deal with.

SABC, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, has this Reuter report titled Rights groups says Tunisia is not right for WSIS, citing the position of the IFEX. It said: "As thousands of delegates and InfoTech experts gathered in Tunisia this weekend for a UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), human rights and media freedom groups were asking: Is this meeting in the wrong place?" and points to both the positions critical of the Tunisian government on free speech, and the administration's defence of its record. Finally, when it comes to reporting on the unfair global village, and communication rights we have within it, isn't it ironic that the awareness and ability to keep up with the issue -- of information -- is itself so unfair?

Conference developments

A dispute over control of the Internet threatened to derail the conference. However, a last-minute decision to leave control in the hands of the United States for the time being avoided a major blow-up.

French reporter Robert Ménard, the president of Reporters sans frontières, was refused admission to Tunisia for phase two of the Summit because of his participation in the occupation of the Tunisian office of tourism in Paris in 2001. The occupation was organized in protest of the arrest in Tunisia of human-rights activist Sihem Bensedrine. Ménard was told that he was not welcome in Tunisia. He is reportedly under judicial instruction and can enter the country only if called by a magistrate.

The summit itself was marred by criticism of Tunisia for allowing attacks on journalists and human rights defenders to occur in the days leading up to the event. A French journalist for "Libération" was stabbed and beaten by unidentified men after he reported on local human rights protesters. A Belgian television crew was harassed and forced to hand over footage of Tunisian dissidents, while local human rights defenders were roughed up and prevented from organising a meeting with international civil society groups.

Official Sites & Organizations

WSIS News & Blogs

Articles & Reports

  • "Bush administration annexes internet". July 1 2005. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  • "Power grab could split the net". October 3 2005. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help) (Includes discussion.)
  • "Information Society: The Next Steps" - Development Gateway Special Report
  • Tunisia, host of WSIS and destination of choice for IT Outsourcing - Economist Advertisement Feature
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