WSIS - the road ahead

Ambassador David Gross, head of the US delegation to the recently concluded World Summit on the Information Society, expressed satisfaction with WSIS's outcome when IDG News Service interviewed him in Geneva. He was particularly pleased about the deflection of calls for changes in Internet governance into the drafting of a report:

"IDGNS: Delegates agreed to have the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Kofi Annan) establish a committee to study the issue of Internet governance. Was it too difficult to reach any hard decisions on this issue in Geneva?

Gross: It was an excellent decision to have the Secretary-General of the U.N. establish a working group on Internet governance. The mechanism for creating the committee will be an open process; it will not just be a governments-only organization. In addition to governments, the committee will be open to the private sector, Civil Society and other inter-governmental organizations. In effect, it will be open to everyone and anyone.

IDGNS: What is the primary focus of this committee?

Gross: The group is to do one very limited thing -- to create a report.... the objective of the report is to help define the term Internet governance and identify the public policy issues associated with it..."

So attention now shifts to the follow-on conference in Tunisia in 2005. Perhaps in response to the criticism expressed by human rights groups about Tunisia as a venue, the speech read by Tunisia's foreign minister at the closing session of WSIS-1 was particularly gracious in its invitation to civil society groups to participate in WSIS-2: "I also would like to lay particular emphasis on the role that we hope will be assumed by the components of civil society and the representatives of the private sector," the minister said on behalf of President Ben Ali, "so that they contribute, with their customary sense of initiative and creativity, to coordinating and unifying efforts with governmental parties during the preparation of the Tunis Summit." See Tunisia Online for the full text of his speech.