In a bold and surprising move, Canada read out a statement in the name of 37 countries (all of the 25 EU members, plus Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia Montenegro, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Monaco, Australia, the USA, and Canada) that called upon the Tunisian government to assure that freedom of expression and other human…
Category: Information Society
Oww, my back!
When I packed for this conference, I had a choice between my more ergonomic but geeky backpack or my more professional and less ergonomic laptop bag. I chose the laptop bag, a decision I have been regretting for a week. I need to remind myself that I only have one back and that long term…
The Prepcom goes into night sessions, parallel sessions, drafting groups…
The official WSIS Prepcom is moving into an accelerated phase as governments try to finalize texts in the next days. Starting yesterday, the sub-committees have begun meeting not only during the regular work hours but also into night sessions from 6-9pm. And they begin parallel sessions today, with two sub-committees meeting at the same time…
WSIS Prepcom III week 1: Nearing the Endgame
The first week of Prepcom III is over. Only five more days of official negotiation are left until the actual summit in Tunis. Lots of interesting events this week: Here’s a recap of some of the week’s excitement: On human rights: There were a couple of events this week on freedom of expression and access…
Moving from “should” to “will”
The governments are getting into the heart of the matter in both Internet Governance and Implementation and Followup of the WSIS. That is, what will be the level of commitments made in Tunis? Clearly some governments, particularly the United States, would like the Tunis outcome document to be a “should” document, i.e. an agreement with…
I’m a Spammer
I find it ironic that during UN meetings on how to resolve some of the worst aspects of new information and communications technologies I have been sending out “spam” messages to thousands of email addresses. Okay, its not really spam. But lots of email programs think I’m sending spam. I manage an email newsletter for…
Prepcom III: Civil Society proposals treated with respect
Today was the first full day of actual government negotiations at Prepcom III, with some interesting developments during the day. I was observing Sub-committee B, chaired by the always entertaining Lyndall Shope-Mafole of South Africa. Sub-committee B is tasked with completing negotiations of basically all the text to go to Tunis for approval with the…
Controversy over Chinese Human Rights NGO
Human Rights has again emerged as a controversial issue at the WSIS, this time over the situation in China. Today the opening plenary of Prepcom III was thrown into conflict and disarray by the attempt by the US delegation to get the NGO “Human Rights in China” accredited for the summit in November. The NGO…
Gearing up for the Final WSIS Showdown
Tomorrow the final Preparatory Committee meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society begins its two-week (!!) session. Whether or not the major substantial issues get resolved here will determine whether the summit is likely to be a watershed or a dismal failure. There are a number of major issues to be addressed. Here…
From Disaster to Development: Using Technology to Achieve the MDGs
I managed to score an invitation to participate in a high-level roundtable on “Innovation and Investment: Scaling Science and Technology to Meet the Millennium Development Goals” yesterday sponsored by the UN ICT Task Force and the UN Millennium Project. Here is the statement I wanted to give: It is a great honor to be here…