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Govts Must Commit to Freedom of Internet News, says Group

Govts must commit to freedom of online information, says group. As a precursor to the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society, a group of journalists has appealed to leaders of nations not to restrict or block Internet access by their citizens. WSIS will set the guiding principles for the Internet for the next few decades," says Spencer Moore, chair of the press freedom committee of the National Press Club of Canada. Those principles will be agreed upon at the first phase of WSIS -- to be held in Geneva, Switzerland Dec. 10-12 -- and written into an official WSIS declaration. Press Freedom is not mentioned in the current draft version of the declaration. "We don't know if that's an oversight or was done on purpose," says Greene. But without an explicit statement confirming the principle of press freedom, dictatorships can censor online news claiming that the United Nations says it's OK, she adds. "Democracies are not in a majority among the UN's 185 member countries." Reflecting the Summit's origins, and in spite of the liberal use of catch phases like 'information society' and 'digital divide', WSIS preparatory meetings have focussed on technology and commercial aspects of the Internet, not on its content or impact on human rights, says Pauline Dugré of the Canadian Commission to UNESCO (the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19446

(Added: Thu Aug 07 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 182)

A Human Rights Portal to the World Summit on the Information Society

Access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) is a growing necessity in a world more and more digitally interconnected. At the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) -which will be held in: Geneva 10-12 December 2003, and Tunis 16-18 November 2005- world governments, the private sector, and civil society, will come together to discuss the impact of ICTs on global society. The Summit represents an unique opportunity for the international human rights community to give shape to a global Information Society built upon social justice. Human Rights Internet (HRI) has therefore taken the initiative to create a portal to help promote human rights at the WSIS. To facilitate this, and to incorporate a human rights perspective in WSIS discussions, we at HRI have compiled official WSIS documents; articles and position papers on human rights and the information society; and added related links concerning human rights and ICTs. We hope this will prove to be a useful database for all those who wish to advance human rights at the WSIS.

http://www.hri.ca/WSIS/

(Added: Thu Nov 13 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 493)

A Steep Climb to the Information Society Summit

GENEVA, Nov 14, 2003 (IPS) Gustavo Capdevila - Everyone wants to bridge the information and telecommunications divide -- governments, the private sector and civil society -- but with less than four weeks to go before the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), agreement on how to tackle the issue remains elusive.

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21121

(Added: Thu Nov 27 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 179)

Choike In depth: World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

The rapid spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the convergence (or combined use) of different media, is resulting in the emergence of new policies and regulation. A body of governance is being created that can impact directly on access to ICTs and their use. At international, regional and national forums "information society" or "e-readiness" action plans and strategies are being formulated. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is one such forum.

http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/703.html

(Added: Thu Nov 13 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 153)

Communications Rights in the Information Society

Communications Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) is a campaign to ensure that communication rights are central to the information society and to the upcoming World Summit to the Information Society (WSIS). The campaign is sponsored and supported by the Platform for Communication Rights, a group of NGOs involved in media and communication projects around the word.

http://www.comunica.org/mailman/listinfo/crisinfo_comunica.org

(Added: Fri Sep 26 2003   Modified: Tue Sep 12 2006   Hits: 155)

Declaration on behalf of the Civil Society Plenary (WSIS)

Human Rights in the Information Society (HRIS) Caucus July 18, 2003. Address to the intersessional meeting of July 15-18, 2003, Paris, France. "Our participation in the WSIS process has been intense, in both human and financial terms, and many people of course have been unable to participate, notably from the poorest countries. Despite these constraints, civil society has produced many contributions to this meeting. We have offered diverse and practical recommendations. We have spoken about our suggestions with you, but we do not have the feeling we have been heard, or even listened to. Our legitimacy is not the same as yours, and we do not claim to be representative. Our legitimacy is anchored in our expertise, our field experience and our defense of a vision with public interest at its centre. We do not feel that this has been recognized or taken into account thus far."

http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis/hris-cs-180703.html

(Added: Wed Aug 13 2003   Modified: Thu Aug 24 2006   Hits: 257)

Failure and Success at the WSIS: Civil Society's next moves

The depth of disappointment with the formal outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society cannot be fully explained by reference to the usual process of Summit attrition, governments horse-trading down to the lowest common denominator.

http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/599.htm

(Added: Mon Mar 01 2004   Modified: Tue Sep 12 2006   Hits: 203)

Failure and Success at the WSIS: Civil Society's next moves

(The GlobalCN) By Seán Ó Siochrú, 23.02.04. The depth of disappointment with the formal outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society cannot be fully explained by reference to the usual process of Summit attrition, governments horse-trading down to the lowest common denominator. Yes, a mutually convenient alliance of powerful and autocratic governments blocked action to tackle the erosion of civil and human rights in electronic space; the US watered down support for development-friendly free and open source software; and community-driven approaches got barely a mention. But other areas might in time yield modest results, such as the call to reroute huge volumes of southern internet traffic internally instead of via the US, the idea of an archive for scientific research setting, and even the review of internet governance.

http://www.worldsummit2005.de/en/web/599.htm

(Added: Wed Mar 17 2004   Modified: Thu Sep 21 2006   Hits: 148)

False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa

Human Rights Watch, 2005. As the World Summit on the Information Society opens in Tunis, Tunisia continues to jail individuals for expressing their opinions on the Internet and suppress Web sites critical of the government, Human Rights Watch said in this report on the repression of Internet users in the Middle East and North Africa.

http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/

(Added: Wed Nov 16 2005   Hits: 117)

GKP WSIS Online Resources

Online resources from the Global Knowledge Partnership including presentation materials at various Regional and PrepCom Meetings.

http://www.globalknowledge.org/gkps_portal/index.cfm?menuid=57&parentid=78

(Added: Tue Sep 02 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 177)

Global Information Technology Report 2003-2004 (PDF)

World Economic Forum in collaboration with INSEAD and the World Bank's Information for Development Program (infoDev), December, 2003. Covering a total of 102 economies, the Networked Readiness Index of the new Global Information Technology Report 2003-2004 measures how prepared economies are to participate in, and benefit from, information and communication technology (ICT) developments. Since it was first launched in 2001, the Report has become a valuable and unique benchmarking tool to determine national ICT strengths and weaknesses and evaluate progress. The Report also highlights the continuing importance of ICT application and development for economic growth.

http://www.insead.edu/gitr/main/previous/chapters/GITR2003-2004.pdf

(Added: Wed Dec 10 2003   Modified: Thu Jan 11 2007   Hits: 235)

Information Economy Report 2005 [PDF 587.61 KB]

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2005. This report 2005 is being published to coincide with the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, at which the international community is expected to agree on further steps to realize the full potential of ICTs. The Report highlights the extent to which developing countries are striving to close the gap that separates the "information haves and have-nots". It also describes the enormous challenges the world still faces in key areas such as increasing access to the Internet and strengthening the security of the online environment. Most important, it shows that when there is awareness, political will and stakeholder involvement in national "e-strategies", progress in the use of ICTs for development is already an exciting reality.

http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/sdteedc20051_en.pdf

(Added: Mon Nov 14 2005   Hits: 128)

NGO Gender Strategies Working Group

The NGO Gender Strategies Working Group was formed at the first WSIS PrepCom Meeting in Geneva in July 2002 as one of the sub-committees of the Civil Society Coordinating Group (CSCG). The groups involved in this effort are: the African Women's Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), Agencia Latino Americana de Informacion, Association for Progressive Communication-Women's Networking Support Programme, International Women's Tribune Centre, and Isis International-Manila.

http://www.genderit.org/

(Added: Fri Sep 26 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 154)

Outcome Documents of the Tunis Phase of the World Summit for the Information Society

Outcome documents for the Second Phase of the WSIS (16-18 November 2005, Tunis). Available in a number of languages and formats.

http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/index2.html

(Added: Tue Dec 20 2005   Modified: Wed Dec 21 2005   Hits: 125)

Patents, Copyright, Freedom and Computers - WSIS speech

On 16 July 2003 renowned computer scientist Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation gave a speech to the WSIS on threats to freedom and computers. This is the text of the speech.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/wsis-2003.html

(Added: Wed Oct 01 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 291)

Report on Attendance at the WSIS and later Australian meetings (PDF)

Prepared by Ian Thomson in January 2004, this 19 page report reviews outcomes from the summit and associated meetings, and concludes by posing some possible actions and reccommendations. Ian Thomson was the Aotearoa New Zealand civil society representative to the summit (PDF 223KB).

http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/6793wsisreport.pdf

(Added: Tue Jan 27 2004   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 191)

The World Summit on the Information Society - Civil Society Division

Official Site of the Civil Society Division for the WSIS. It contains press releases, agendas, video footage of meetings, process information and links to online forums.

http://www.geneva2003.org/wsis/indexb01.htm

(Added: Fri Sep 26 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 141)

The World Summit on the Information Society and its Legacy for Global Governance (pdf)

By Marc Raboy, Université de Montréal [forthcoming in Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, vol. 66, nos. 3 -4, (June- July) 2004, theme issue edit ed by Claudia Padovani]. "Regardless how one looks at it, the World Summit on the Information Society undeniably opens a new phase in global communication governance and global governance generally. The WSIS process (by which I mean the sum of official and parallel activities) has identified the problematic issues in global communication, indicated the range of views on how to deal with them, provided various blueprints of what should and could be possible in the way of solutions, and gingerly explored ways of dealing with these questions in the future. To that extent, WSIS has crystallized a new paradigm in communication governance that has been emerging for some time now."

http://www.lrpc.umontreal.ca/wsis-raboy-gazette.pdf

(Added: Mon May 24 2004   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 191)

UN Expert: Political and Commercial Considerations Took Precedence Over Human Rights at Information Society Summit

"The World Summit on the Information Society has been marked by political considerations and commercial perspectives taking precedence over genuine commitment to the respect for human rights, thus marginalizing debate over the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The "Tunis Commitment", one of the Summit's main outcomes, did not fully reflect the actual nature of the debate, particularly participation by the civil society, nor provide solutions to the problems of Internet governance." 15 December 2005.

http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/6DEF29EFCA3691C3C12570D80039BF73

(Added: Tue Dec 20 2005   Hits: 189)

UNESCO on World Summit on the Information Society

UNESCO, with its unique mandate to promote the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, plays a key role in the WSIS preparation. UNESCO's contribution incorporates the ethical, legal and sociocultural dimensions of the Information Society and helps to grasp the opportunities offered by the ICTs by placing the individual at its centre.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/ev.php?URL_ID=1543&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201/

(Added: Fri Sep 26 2003   Modified: Tue May 02 2006   Hits: 166)

World Summit on the Information Society

The aim of the Summit is to develop a common vision and understanding of the information society and to draw up a strategic plan of action for concerted development towards realizing this vision. The Summit will also seek to define an agenda covering the objectives to be achieved and resources to be mobilized.

http://www.itu.int/wsis/

(Added: Sun Jun 15 2003   Modified: Mon May 29 2006   Hits: 270)

World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in two phases, with participation of 175 countries. The first phase took place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003, and the second phase took place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005. Four documents were adopted: * Geneva Declaration of Principles * Geneva Plan of Action * Tunis Commitment * Tunis Agenda for the Information Society

http://www.itu.int/wsis/index.html

(Added: Mon Dec 05 2005   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 111)

World Summit on the Information Society: PREPCOM-2

The second meeting of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom-2 of the Tunis phase) will take place in Geneva (Switzerland) from 17-25 February 2005.

http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory2/pc2/index.html

(Added: Thu Feb 17 2005   Modified: Tue Sep 19 2006   Hits: 141)

World+dog fight over World Summit of The Information Society

This article from on-line IT news source "The Register" gives a good overview of tensions within the WSIS, and reactions from the participants involved.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33086.html

(Added: Tue Sep 30 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 224)

WSIS Focuses on Illiteracy and Poverty

By Ramesh Jaura, IPS, Dec 11 2003. Share the benefits of information technology with the poorest countries and shape its use to fight illiteracy and poverty: this is the gist of appeals to rich countries and business organisations at the first global summit on information.

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21502

(Added: Thu Dec 18 2003   Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005   Hits: 187)

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