WSIS Prepcom III

SubCommittee A, 23 September 2005

Report by Jette Madsen

Today's session mainly dealt with procedural issues regarding the establishment of drafting groups.

Participation of other stakeholders in drafting groups.
Consultations yesterday led by El Salvador and Singapore had showed that there was agreement that CS and the private sector could participate for the purpose of giving written and oral statements, but there was not agreement on whether civil society and private sector could stay in the room as silent observers after they have made their statements. The representative from Singapore said that Arab, African and a number of Asian countries had shared the view, that precedens from the Geneva Phase should be followed, meaning that silent observers should not be allowed.

As the question also concerns subcommittee B, it was handled over to president of the PrepCom, Janis Karklins, who at noon held an informal consultation with interested governments.

Presentation of non-paper.
Khan presented a draft for chapter based on the outline presented two days ago. To be downloaded at http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_multi.asp?lang=en&id=1962|0 . The governments endorsed the paper, which has no official status, as a framework for the further work in the drafting groups. An English version of the document was distributed at the meeting and versions in the five other UN languages will be published at the ITU website later this afternoon.

Most comments dealt with procedure, but there were a few comments also on the content of the new document. Among these the intervention from the US, who raised three concerns:
1) We should be cautious about at which level (national, regional or international) we speak. Jurisdiction should be respected.
2) The paper seems to move to a conclusion that has not been agreed yet
3) The non-governmental nature of the subject assigns an important role to other stakeholders and the US would like to see an broader participation of these.
Finally, the US proposed new language to para. 45. Instead of “We express appreciation…”, the para should state “We reassure that we will take no action that will undermine the security and stability of Internet”.

The EU expressed its support on the latter, whereas Canada supported US on the multistakeholder approach and stated that the document appeared to assume a new governing mechanism that would give more centralization.

The establishment of drafting groups
There was some discussion on when the work in drafting groups should begin. In general, EU and US would like more time for discussions in plenary, whereas governments from Africa, South America and Arab States called for the drafting groups to start now. However, at both sides concern was expressed with the fact that the new non-paper was only available at the meeting in English and that the document was first presented at the meeting, leaving no possibility for discussions within delegations and in the regional groups.

In the end, Amb. Khan proposed the establishment of three drafting groups on Monday:
DG1: parts 1, 2 and 3b of the document
DG2: part 4
DG3: part 3a and 5.
On Monday, when governments have had the possibility to have a closer look at the document, they will be given the possibility to comment on this structure.

Interventions from other stakeholders:
In the beginning of the session, CCBI made a statement on the importance of importance of capacity building. A number of private initiatives on this subject was mentioned and in the end, the hope was expressed that private sector would be able to introduce these examples in the next weeks drafting groups.

From Civil Society, Kicki Nordström spoke on behalf of the disability Caucus and urged governments to express their commitment to secure full and equal participation of all by supporting the universal design concept. The Youth caucus and the Education task force made a joint statement, where they e.g. advocated for lower costs of ICT for education and proposed a new paragraph on capacity building.

After the new document had been presented, the word was again given to civil society and the private sector. Adam Peake spoke on behalf of civil society drawing attention to new para 43c. If CS shall continue to play an important role, they should also participate to the fullest extent in drafting groups. CCBI expressed disappointment with the role that governments would assign to private sector in the drafting group and addressed that education and capacity-building was not reflected in the new document.