World Summit on the Information Society

Statement to the General Debate, December 11 by Sally Burch,
Agencia Latinoamericana de Información, ALAI.

This afternoon, (December 11), civil society launched its
Declaration to the WSIS, entitled "Shaping Information
Societies for Human Needs", developed over the past months by
broad diversity of organizations.

Our emphasis has been on constructing a people-centred and
inclusive vision of information societies, centred on social
justice, sustainable development and human rights, and proposing
that developments in this field must be oriented to solving
life-critical needs of people. We recognize that this vision has
found an echo in the official Summit Declaration, displacing the
technocentric vision of the initial drafts.

But principles become meaningful when they orient policy and
action; and we fail to find these principles adequately
reflected in many of the Summit proposals.

While the Summit Declaration refers human rights only by naming
the Universal Declaration, the civil society document goes
further, by reaffirming the full integration of human rights and
detailing the particular relevance of specific rights to the
information society, and calling for their effective
enforcement.

Our Declaration underlines that cultural and linguistic
diversity, freedom of the media and the public domain of global
knowledge are as essential for information societies as
biodiversity is for our natural environment. We call for
legislation to prevent excessive media concentration and
underline the importance of promoting both public service media
and community media.

We support greater participation of citizens and communities in
the design and control of technology, and encourage promotion of
collective innovation and cooperative work in the information
society.

We propose a review of the limited intellectual monopolies
regime (otherwise known as "intellectual property rights") and
insist on legislation and measures to extend and protect the
public domain of global knowledge. We especially argue for the
promotion of free software, given its participative character
and advantages for developing countries.

We express our concern about the deployment of "information
warfare" technologies and techniques and call for a future
convention against information warfare, as well as actively
promoting media and communications for peace.

We emphasize guarantees for the right to privacy and call for
limits to minimize use of monitoring and surveillance and
prevent abuses.

And we call for adequate participation of marginalized
stakeholders in ICT governance mechanisms, including developing
countries, civil society organizations and small and medium
enterprises.

The Civil Society Declaration is being presented to the Summit
as civil society's contribution to the continuing discussions.

We are also presenting it to society, as a means of opening a
much broader and democratic debate on these crucial issues that
are fundamental to the public interest.

The Civil Society Declaration is available at:
movimientos.org/foro_comunicacion/show_text.php3?key=2331