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The UN World Summit on the Information Society is currently underway in
Geneva.<br><br>
This report on WSIS is now available at the IP3 website:<br><br>
"Understanding WSIS: An Institutional Perspective on the <br>
UN World Summit on the Information Society"<br>
<a href="http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/" eudora="autourl">http://www.ip3.gatech.edu</a><br><br>
WSIS is hard to understand. The 2003 Geneva meeting of the UN World
<br>
Summit on the Information Society has brought thousands of people to
Geneva <br>
to articulate a collective vision about the benefits and potentials of
information <br>
in society and the policies needed to realize them. <br>
Even immediate participants have difficulty
understanding what has been achieved. <br>
With so many recommendations, which ones will lead to concrete political
action <br>
and social change? What is important and why?<br>
To help answer such questions, this report
provides an institutional analysis of WSIS. <br>
It focuses on two main features: its characteristics as a policy forum
and the mechanisms <br>
available to it for policy implementation. <br>
This institutional analysis is then applied to a
set of WSIS policies to identify those with the <br>
greatest potential to lead to social change. Two policies stand out:
Internet governance and <br>
security. The WSIS forum is well suited to bestow legitimacy on a
proposal to alter <br>
the existing Internet governance regime, and the available implementation
mechanisms <br>
are well suited to put such a proposal into practice. Likewise,
WSIS is an <br>
appropriate forum for promulgating a global agreement on security, and
the available <br>
implementation mechanisms are also suitable. Other policy
topics considered are: <br>
free and open software, communication rights, intellectual
property, human rights, <br>
and funding.<br>
To say these policies are good candidates for
action is not to say that they necessarily <br>
will be endorsed and implemented. Nonetheless, by identifying
issues that "fit" the <br>
world summit institution, this analysis can help set priorities for
action and to gain <br>
understanding of outcomes.<br><br>
<br>
Report available at:
<a href="http://www.ip3.gatech.edu/" eudora="autourl">http://www.ip3.gatech.edu</a><br><br>
WSIS web site:
<a href="http://www.itu.int/wsis/" eudora="autourl">http://www.itu.int/wsis/</a><br><br>
The Internet and Public Policy Project (IP3) promotes Internet
policy-related research in the <br>
School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. It promotes dialogue between
researchers within <br>
and outside the Institute, offering forums for debate and
discussion.<br><br>
This report is a joint project between IP3 and Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility <br>
(<a href="http://www.cpsr.org/" eudora="autourl">www.CPSR.org</a>) with
funding from the Open Society Institute distributed through the Internet
Democracy Project. <br>
Additional funding came from the Georgia Tech President Undergraduate
Research Award Program.<br><br>
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