Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights

COMMUNICATIONS: No Mysteries at WSIS

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Dec 10 2003 (IPS) - The World Summit on the Information Society is proving a rara avis of international conferences in the sense that before it began Wednesday all of the major controversies that emerged during the two years of preparations had largely been resolved.

The purpose of the Summit is to set policies and establish practical measures through which the international community can tackle the so-called digital divide that separates rich from poor countries.

The predominant feeling of harmony at the WSIS, however, has not obscured the dissatisfaction of some civil society activists who had hoped to introduce reforms in the plans for the global Information Society and who ultimately had to settle for preventing backsliding on the issues of human rights and freedom of expression.

The governments involved in the preparations reached an understanding, resorting to the time-tested mechanism of putting off decisions on the prickliest issues.

As a result, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Swiss President Pascal Couchepin were able to open the first phase of the WSIS in a relaxed atmosphere.

In contrast, just three months ago, another international meet, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Cancún, Mexico, concluded in outright failure.

But the method employed by the Geneva phase of the WSIS (the second phase takes place in Tunis in 2005) has left unresolved crucial aspects of the future of information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as financing technological expansion and controlling the Internet.

The matter of funding for extending new technologies to developing countries will be taken up by U.N. agencies, which are to issue a report within a year.

Other issues related to the operations of the Internet, such as management of the worldwide network, regulating unsolicited advertising and unwanted messages ("spam"), protecting privacy, fighting cybercrime and ensuring the security of the system itself will be evaluated by a working group that is to present its conclusions during the second phase of the WSIS.

The Summit, organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the behest of the U.N., is underway in Geneva through Friday. The Tunis stage is slated for Nov. 16-18, 2005.

A unique characteristic of the Geneva Summit, in addition to the early and unprecedented consensus achieved, has been the first-time participation of civil society representatives in a conference of this level.

Renate Bloem, head of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organisations (CONGO) with U.N. Consultative Status, said she is proud of the role played by civil society in the WSIS processes.

The NGOs helped shift the debate away from focusing on information and communication technologies as an end in themselves to a vision that includes ICTs as means towards social and economic development, Bloem told IPS.

Secretary-General Annan agreed that civil society, as well as the private sector, should take part in the effort to bridge the technology gap between industrialised and developing nations.

Specifically, civil society representatives can contribute the wealth of their knowledge about the hopes and concerns of communities and individuals, said the U.N. chief.

But he acknowledged the complexity of the challenge, based on the characteristics of the digital divide, which is the sum of a series of disparities.

In addition to the technological gap are enormous disparities in terms of infrastructure. Content also presents big differences, as much of the information available on Internet sites is not useful for meeting people’s needs.

Another factor, one that is being taken up by the participants in the Summit, is the predominance of the English language, which covers nearly 70 percent of all web sites. English sometimes is used to the exclusion of local languages and even to opinions, according to Annan.

ICTs do not merely represent a means for the industrialised North to communicate its points of view to the developing South, says CONGO leader Bloem. On the contrary, they are a system of dialogue in which the South has as much to offer the Information Society as the North, she said.

CONGO will be monitoring the management and expansion of efforts to protect security, freedom of expression, access to information and equality of opportunity in employing ICTs, Bloem added.

As for freedom of expression, the NGOs recognised the importance that the Summit’s Final Declaration does reaffirm Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which consecrates that principle.

But Ronald Koven, the European representative of the World Press Freedom Committee, would have preferred that the WSIS adopt actions to press the great many countries that do not respect freedom of expression to apply Article 19.

Maryem Marzouki, member of the civil society group’s human rights caucus, acknowledges that the Summit’s final text maintains references to these universal human rights principles.

However, two years ago the civil society representatives joined the process of preparing the WSIS with the hope of reforming the Information Society but have been limited to trying to prevent backsliding, Marzouki told IPS.

The Declaration and the Plan of Action still state that national legislation takes precedence over global values in these areas, said the activist.

The feeling is that an excellent opportunity for strengthening human rights worldwide has been lost, said Marzouki.