Tough issues face Information Society summit

Delegates attending the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December can look forward to another major clash over several contentious issues that blocked agreement of two key documents during a critical round of negotiations in the Alpine city last month.

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WSIS is an attempt to bridge what many governments view as a widening gap between people who have access to modern communication services and information, and thus knowledge, and those who don't, according to Yoshio Utsumi, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the U.N. agency responsible for the summit. The importance of communications and access to networks "is no longer just a technical matter, but a fundamental policy goal for every nation," Utsumi said in a statement.

At September's Prepcom-3, the final preparatory conference before the summit, government representatives and members of the private and civil sectors, including the media, met to agree on final drafts of two core documents, the Declaration of Principles and the Action Plan. Despite some progress, they failed to produce documents ready for signing at the world's first Information Society summit.

Now the ITU is hastily trying to organize at least one "intersessional" meeting, if not two, in an effort to build a consensus before heads of state from at least 50 countries -- both developed and developing -- meet at the summit from Dec. 10-12, said Gary Fowlie, an ITU spokesman. The first intersessional meeting is planned for Nov. 11-14, "pending resources," he said. The second, depending on the outcome of the first, could take place directly before the summit from Dec. 7-9.

The expectations of the summit are high if the Declaration of Principles is any indication. The document seeks "a commitment to build an inclusive Information Society where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals and communities to achieve their full potential and improve their quality of life in a sustainable manner."

The document, representing a framework of fundamental principles, is intrinsically linked with the second, the Action Plan, which contains more than 140 items to achieve them. Copies of the draft documents are available on the ITU-sponsored WSIS Web site: http://www.itu.int/wsis.

Both, however, are riddled with contentious issues, such as who will finance the development of the Information Society and govern the Internet, not to mention intellectual property rights, open-source software and freedom of expression.

"This is the first time that issues like financing, Internet governance and security and even spam have ever been discussed at a global level," Fowlie said. "Because they're so broad and some of them so new, it's definitely a challenge to address them all."

For sure, money is one of the biggest sticking points, according to the spokesman. Demands by several developing countries to create a "digital solidarity fund" have met strong resistance by developed countries, which argue that existing financing mechanisms could be better leveraged, he said.

Another prickly subject, almost on par with financing, is Internet governance, Fowlie said. China and Brazil are among several countries calling for one or more global bodies to manage Internet resources, such as domain names, root servers and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses -- an area heavily controlled by the U.S. Hardly a surprise, the idea has fallen upon deaf ears in the U.S. delegation, which continues to back ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Delegates from the European Union (EU) likewise support a private model, along the line of the U.S.-backed ICANN, preferring not to see the ITU become involved.

Also, the role of different software models in ensuring access to information and knowledge has raised heated debate, according to the ITU spokesman. Many countries, and not just developing ones, feel that proprietary software, like that developed and marketed by Microsoft Corp., doesn't meet all users' needs optimally in terms of cost and usage.

Earlier language in the August draft of the Action Plan, advocating wide use of open-source software, is toned down in the September draft, largely because of demands by U.S. and EU delegates that commercial software interests receive fair representation in the plan. The language now speaks of "striking a balance" among the different software models, including proprietary, open source and free software.

The fact that free software is listed in the latest draft in addition to open source is the result of intensive lobbying by several groups, including the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Europe.

"Free software doesn't have to be free of charge; it can be sold commercially," said FSF Europe President Georg Greve. "What distinguishes free software from the other software models is basically the freedom it gives users to modify, distribute and use the software in an unlimited way. Open source is a term that even Microsoft is now using when it talks about opening its code for governments to view. Microsoft software is proprietary software."

Perhaps less contentious, but an issue nonetheless, is the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), according to Fowlie. "We have to look at how IPR, patents and copyrights are affected by a global communications network," he said. "There's been a lot of debate on this."

Freedom of expression is another sensitive topic and one that must be addressed if communication services are to extend to the masses around the globe, the spokesman said.

With so many issues still on the negotiating table and with so little time and money to resolve them, some participants in the negotiations wonder how successful the December summit will be.

"Consensus building is very difficult to begin with," said Karen Banks, a spokeswoman for the Association for Progressive Communications, one of the nongovernmental organizations observing the negotiations as a member of the "Civil Society" group of participants. "But add to that the fact that this whole effort is incredibly under-resourced. It's primarily a U.S.-EU affair. They have resources to send delegates who can argue their cases. Many of the developing countries don't have these resources."

Other Civil Society members have been even more outspoken in their criticism. Governments should "listen or leave us alone in the Information Age," said Ralf Bendrath, a Civil Society representative associated with Germany's Heinrich Böll Foundation, in a statement posted on the organization's Web site, http://www.worldsummit2003.org.

The Civil Society, representing about 500 groups, has begun drafting a "vision paper," which it plans to submit in December, according to a statement.

Should heads of state in December sign documents that fall short of the expectations of the Civil Society and others, they will have an opportunity to make corrections in two years, Fowlie said. "We are blessed with the fact that this is a two-phase summit," he said. "When we meet again in Tunisia in two years, we can measure what success has been made and, if necessary, re-evaluate the Action Plan and make adjustments. This is the beginning of a process; it's not the end."

The follow-up summit is scheduled for Nov. 16-18, 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia.