The suspended Third Preparatory Committee (PrepCom3) resumed its meeting on 10 November 2003, with delegates hoping to agree on a final version of the summit declaration and a refined plan of action on the last day, 14 November.

The task was daunting.

There were 228 paragraphs the delegates need to agree on and they only had 34 hours to negotiate, noted Ambassador Numinem from Finland, chair of the subcommittee two on content and theme.

As basis for further negotiations, the governments agreed to take the 'non-paper' PrepCom president Adama Samassekou presented last 24 October. The 'non-paper' entitled "Draft Non-Paper of the President of the WSIS PrepCom on the Declaration of Principles Building the Information Society: A Global Challenge in the New Millennium" is an attempt at breaking the deadlock in governmental negotiations. http://prepcom.net/wsis/1067679455627

Karen Banks from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) read a statement by civil society in the opening session's plenary. The statement focused on the lack of impact civil society has had so far in the intergovernmental negotiations. The statement read was based on the Civil Society (CS) Content and Themes co-coordinator Sally Burch's letter to president Samassekou when she delivered the joint civil society comments to his 'non-paper.'

Visit http://prepcom.net/wsis/1067688830007 for a copy of the letter. To see the civil society comments, check http://www.worldsummit2003.de/download_en/comments-on-nonpaper-30-10-2003-final.rtf

As expected, many civil society groups and organisations did not have any representative at the PrepCom 3A since no funding was available from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Activists who made it to Geneva devised ways to link all their discussions to the 'virtual plenary' e-mail list and other online forms of participation.

To address this problem, a "virtual seminar space" was organised on 12 November by Cotelco International Possibilities Unlimited. All civil society groups who had access to the web were asked to participate.

Live webcasts of the PrepCom3A meetings were also set up at the ITU website. The webcasts however offered no interpretation. To see the archived proceedings, check: http://www.itu.int/ibs/WSIS/pc3

Deadlock on major issues

By the third day of the negotiations, it had become apparent that there were two major conflict lines within the WSIS process. The more prominent was the North-South divide, which was evident in the way issues of finance, intellectual property and to some extent, internet governance were tackled.

Japan and the EU still fiercely resisted any mention of a "Digital Solidarity Fund." Earlier, the African group, the Latin America/Caribbean Group, the Arab Group, India and Bangladesh formed a coalition in support of the Fund and stated that they will not participate in the process if consensus/compromise is not reached on the issue. This financing question is now perceived as the major conflict of the summit leading some to think that it clearly could lead a failure of the whole WSIS effort.

Brazil and the Western Group were, up to this time, still in a deadlock over the right wording for "intellectual property" - to get the balance between the rights of producers and users of intellectual works.

The other major conflict line revolved around human rights and China's central role in it. On the first day of the plenary, China along with Vietnam angered some delegations when it asked that references to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be removed.

It has also been heavy handed in insisting at the security group that the "free flow of information" be restricted through a "national legislation."

Too short a time

By the end of the third day, it became apparent that there was a need to fast track the negotiations.

The Chair of subcommittee two proposed that paragraphs in italics that have no brackets be skipped to give them enough time to come up with an Action Plan ready for December.

After an hour's break where regional groups discussed and consulted each other regarding the proposal, the conference was reconvened.

Most delegates were more or less supportive of the proposal but wanted to make sure there were no contradictions between the two documents. Only members of the Western Group could not agree among themselves, while the Eastern European group insisted that Contents and Themes group "examine the document on a section by section basis."

Civil society reaction

On the eve of the closing of the PrepCom 3A, civil society organisation (CSOs) circulated in the CS Plenary Mailing list the draft of what will later be the official statement from Civil Society at the closing of the proceedings.

In the statement, CSOs took the governments to task for not even being able to agree on making the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 the common foundation of the first article of the WSIS Declaration.

They also questioned the apparent lack of interest among governments in forming a common vision for the information society, wondering if it was ever their agenda to come up with one in the first place.

Consequently, the CSO statement said "Therefore we will now stop giving input to the intergovernmental documents…This process is going so badly, we need to see how we can save it from destruction caused by governments."

The CSOs have started drafting an alternative document, which they will present at the Summit this December. The document is "the result of a two-year, bottom-up, online and offline policy-development process."

With regards to the two years leading to the second phase in Tunisia, the draft statement reiterated that "governments alone cannot implement whatever action plan they come up with: Implementation mechanisms that do not associate closely civil society and other stakeholders will simply be not acceptable but also will just not work."

For a copy of the final statement, check http://prepcom.net/wsis/1069007476819

Sources: "PrepCom3 has resumed its work; Civil Society focusing on own vision and strategic issues" as posted on the WSIS section of the Heinrich Boll Foundation website last 10 November 2003 at http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/nav/14.htm "Time running out for negotiations; Major conflicts still unresolved - chair proposed to skip discussion on action plan" posted last 12 November 2003 at http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/nav/14.htm