AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] "the friends of the president" drafting group

Wed Jun 30 08:28:24 BST 2004

Dear Betrand,

thanks for the careful analysis. As I proposed in an earlier message, one "trick" could be to propose a "non-voting liaison". The ICANN system of collaboration and multistakeholder approach is based on this liaison principle (the GAC and the ALAC and other communities have non-voting liaisons in official ICANN bodies without voting rights, that means they do not share the responsiblity for decisions and keep their right to articulate an individual and dissending voice).

So why not propose this officially to Karklins via the Bureau?

Best

wolfgang

a 

________________________________

Von: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org im Auftrag von Bertrand de LA CHAPELLE
Gesendet: Mo 28.06.2004 13:49
An: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Betreff: [WSIS CS-Plenary] "the friends of the president" drafting group

Hi Rik,

You rightly identified this notion of a "friends of the
president group" as an important novation in the process. A.
Samassekou tried something similar in the first phase but
encountered serious difficulties in the PrepCom2, as
governments (in particular GRULAC if I remember well)
considered he had no mandate for doing so and that, as a
result, they had not been able to contribute. So his whole
document was trashed.

Drawing lessons from that painful experience, Janis Karklins
has made sure he is given an explicit mandate this time. But
the question of how Civil society could participate in this
process is not closed. Quite on the contrary.

Indeed, during the joint Bureaus meeting, (to which I
participated on behalf of the Internet Governance Caucus), I
explicitely mentionned to President Karklins this formulation
about a group of "friends of the President".

I also recalled the statement Ralf had read that very morning
in the official plenary, about providing appropriate
mechanisms for civil society to effectively contribute "in a
timely manner" to the drafting of whatever Political
Declaration could be planned for Tunis and our willingness to
be involved. I also recalled that SG Utsumi a few minutes
earlier in his response to a previous question, had wished
the setting up of "appropriate communication channels" with
civil society.

To my surprise, Amb. Karklins went further than I expected,
replying straightforwardly that he could envisage having
civil society and private sector representatives in the group
of friends of the President.

He may have been too bold : although no government made an
explicit remarks at that time, I do not believe they would
accept a joint, multi-stakeholder group to facilitate
drafting.

Nor am I sure this would be in the full interest of civil
society to be merged in one single group. Maybe a separate,
paralel, channel would be better. It has to be evaluated
carefully - and quickly.

But two things are certain in that context :
- the earlier good input channels are established with the
President, the more impact there can be on the architecture
of the final Tunis Declaration itself;
- Amb Karklins is visibly willing to find ways to involve
civil society in more than mere symbolic ways, and this
notion of "friends of the President" is to consider with
great attention. 

The second phase is different from the first one : the way
the final document is going to be drafted clearly more
structured.

A priority is therefore to define how we want to be part of
that process and lobby to get support from friendly
governments (as was the case with the EU to solve the
Hammamet CS Crisis)

For the rest, you are right to mention that the Summit
process must take into account not only regional and thematic
events but also "WSIS-related Events". This leaves the
possibility for events organized by civil society to push a
given theme and force it somehow on the Agenda.

This is just preliminary thoughts.

Best

Bertrand

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:01:45 -0400
>From: Rik Panganiban <rikp at earthlink.net> 
>Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] process for drafting of
documents 
>To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
>
>COMMENTARY ON THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL FOR A SUMMIT DOCUMENT
DRAFTING
>PROCESS
>
>My understanding is that the President of the Prepcom Amb.
Janis
>Karklins has made quite an interesting proposal, which
should be
>accepted today.  He calls for a "group of friends of the
President" in
>consultation with regional groups to prepare a "document to
serve as
>the basis of negotiations" taking into account the outcomes
of relevent
>thematic, regional and other "WSIS-related" meetings.
>
>This proposal would represent a good amount of trust placed
in the
>President to facilitate the drafting of the main texts of
the Summit
>directly, as opposed to being done through a bureau or only
through a
>formal Prepcom process.  In Phase I, the Prepcom President's
own
>drafting process was pre-empted by governments wishing to
have more
>direct control over the drafting.
>
>This also would be a evolving document that would be able to
>incorporate the results of various "WSIS-related" meetings. 
This is in
>contrast to the Phase I process, which did not allow for the
regional
>consultations to be directly inputted into the draft summit
texts.  In
>addition, it leaves vague the notion of which meetings
actually might
>be included, since "WSIS-related" could be interpreted quite
broadly,
>perhaps including meetings organized by the private sector,
civil
>society, academia, etc.
>
>Presumably the final documents will take the form of a
political
>declaration and an action-oriented document.
>
>For civil society, this represents perhaps a gain and
perhaps a loss in
>terms of our ability to monitor and contribute to the
drafting process.
>  A "friends of the chair" committee would presumably be
closed to
>observers.  However a text incorporating directly thematic,
regional
>and other WSIS-related meetings might be more open to civil
society
>input, since it gives us more opportunities to make
contributions that
>in the end might end up in the summit text.
>
>Rik Panganiban
>===============================================
>RIK PANGANIBAN       Communications Coordinator
>
>Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship
>with the United Nations (CONGO)
>web: http://www.ngocongo.org
>email: rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
>mobile: (+1) 917-710-5524
_______________________________________________
Plenary mailing list
Plenary at wsis-cs.org
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary