Retrospectively (as this report is written in January 2004), this session was, by all accounts, the most tense of all WSIS sessions. Technically, since it was not possible to plan formally yet another session, this session was considered as a resumed session of the previous one. As reported before, at the end of PrepCom3, the situation was not so good : "Open Access" had vanished from the Declaration of Principles, and I was very frustrated that a good language promoting programs in support of "Open Access" narrowly missed to be included in the "Plan of Action", simply because of the blunder of a diplomat from a friendly government. In general, the atmosphere was very tense. To add a sense that this session was an unscheduled emergency session, on Friday 14, started at the C.I.C.G, yet another completely unrelated "Red Cross" conference that took the ground floor hall ( see pictures ). Workers were building booths on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday the PrepCom3A was confined only to the upper floor. I remember the eerie atmosphere of workers and later "Red Cross" meeting attendees mixing up with the diplomatic crowd. The workload was very high. Night sessions (7PM - 10PM) were scheduled.

There was a feeling that the whole Summit might end up being a failure. Behind closed doors informal negotiations were conducted in Geneva, before the session resumed, two so-called "non-papers" as results of those informal negotiations were issued on October 23 and November 5.

The Beijing Declaration ( 19 October) at the TWAS 9th General Conference was disappointing. "Open Access" and "Open Archives" are not even mentioned, furthermore the following paragraph seems to go indirectly against Open Access journals, since the name : "High Impact journals" is often meant to designate established subscription based journals.
Many path-finding research investigations of scientists are not published in front-ranking journals in the North. Yet these are relevant and important, and should be made known to the world. To this end, TWAS should begin publication of periodic `Research Highlights,' which will summarize these studies in a rigorous and professional manner. TWAS should also support efforts to have these highlighted research reports covered in the world's high- impact journals.

A ray of hope for Open Access was provided by the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (22 Oct 2003). It was really hoped that this would turn the European delegation into an active Open Access supporter. In order that the Berlin declaration, and in general major previous Open Access declarations, may be given the status of a UN document that can be fully taken into account by diplomats, these documents were submitted by the WSIS accredited civil society NGOs ( ENSTA / MDPI ) in the name of the scientific information working group. Therefore, we asked the Max Planck Institute and the CNRS to authorize such actions and help us. The response was extremely quick and enthusiastic. We thank Dr. Stefan Echinger (Max Planck Society) for his agreement and support. We thank also Dr. Francis Andr� (INIST/CNRS) concerning the French version. Tbe Berlin declaration is now listed as document WSIS/PC-3/C/0187 ( English, French ) - (dated 07 Nov - published 10 Nov ).

Meanwhile, with the informal agreement of Dr.Peter Suber who display this declaration on his site, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing has also been submitted WSIS/PC-3/C/0184 (dated 06 Nov - published 08 Nov ). I did not have time to follow the same course of action with the "Budapest declaration" and the "Wellcome trust statement", but we plan to do so in the future during the Tunis phase.

In the Civil Society comments on the first non-paper (23 October ), we underlined that the word "open access" refers to the free access to information that has been created by authors that do not seek financial compensation. The best example is scientific authors. This information should be freely available and not be resold by publishers at a very high price, therefore creating yet another digital divide. As a conclusion the word "open access" refers to non-commercial and public domain information. The word "equitable access" refers to the "equitable trade" ("commerce equitable" in French) movement that promotes a fair financial compensation between economical actors with unequal bargaining power. Therefore the word "equitable" seems correct, but as long as it used within a trade context. This word is fitted for commercial transactions related to commercial information. It should not be used to replace "Open Access" because it would imply that scientific information, public domain information and any other information that is created for free, should be subjected to trade rules.

By a stroke of good luck, it happened that Dr.Peter Suber, member of our steering committee, was invited to visit Croatia ( 5 - 8 November 2003 ) with the financial assistance of the U.S. Speaker and Specialist Program managed by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Along informal talks with librarians, he was invited to give a lecture at the fourth Seminar for Academic and Special Libraries. jokingly entitled "Don't Shoot the Librarian - How the Others See us?". Since, I had friendly discussions, during PrepCom2, with Dr. Diana SIMIC, deputy minister of Science and Technology, and found that she was extremely receptive to the "Open Access" paradigm, it was a golden opportunity to try to reinforce her commitment in supporting Open Access at the Summit. Upon our request, Dr. Diana SIMIC was kind enough to welcome Dr.Peter Suber and to have a fruitful discussion. Dr.Peter Suber must be thanked for his time and advocacy talent, during this "diplomatic mission".

As the conference began, I started to submit a number of written proposals, that were brought before the various delegations, first to remove any element that may trigger an objection, and then try to create enough support so that a delegation may take upon itself to present our suggestion as the suggestion of the state it is representing. One should understand how difficult this is. Only one objection by a single state may suffice to reject a proposal, because all WSIS decisions are made by consensus. Often, however, when a proposal is made by an influential state, or when the proposal is backed by several other states, the president of the session ( in this case, the Finnish ambassador Asko NUMMINEN ) may or may not propose that informal negotiations should be held between the set of concerned state ( the one that proposes it, those who support it, and those who object to it ). The proposing state, even backed by several other states may decide also to decline the kind offer of the Session president and renounce to to pursue its proposal. The process drafting, consulting and re-drafting was feverish and involved many versions ( in order to clearly identify the papers with diplomats ).

For PrepCom3A, I installed also a WIKI server ( 2 machines hosted at ENSTA ) at WSIS-WIKI.ORG for the Scientific Information Group in order to have a "real time" interaction with the members of the Working group, but the rapid pace of the conference and the continuous modifications in relationship to ongoing negotiations made this tool, not as useful as I expected. The WIKI tool might have been useful at PrepCom2, when the pace was much slower.

On the first day, Monday 10 November, I managed to convince the Australian delegation to propose that a distinction should be made between equitable access and open access : The sharing and strengthening of global knowledge for development can be enhanced by removing barriers to open access to information for social, political, health, cultural, educational, and scientific activities and to equitable access to information for commercial, economical, industrial and financial activities. ( more details ). This proposal was supported by Morroco. As expected from my consultations with this delegation, China did not object. However, other delegations who pledged their active support on the floor, did not keep their promises. After some delay, it was objected first by the United States, and then by the European Union. Australia did not insist. Concerning the United States, I was disappointed, since after our long discussions I thought they would not object. One US diplomat accused me of "wishful listening". Concerning the European Union, it was even more disappointing. The Berlin declaration seemed to have a low impact on the Italian presidency ( to which I had explained the declaration beforehand ) and on the European commission representative (yet unknown to me) who happened to be there at this wee hour. The influence of the German and French delegations on the overall position of the European Union on this topic seemed to be minimal.

Without yielding to discouragement, I kept drafting new propositions for the declaration ( version 4 - 11 Nov ) and the plan of action (12 Nov ). The core of the overall debate was on the Declaration of Principles at that time ( Human rights, Governance ). I met more European commission representatives. The opinion concerning "Open Access" was divided. Some ones were enthusiastically endorsing it, even financing it !, while some others, strict enforcers of neoliberalism, were suspicious. It took much effort to show that the subscription based business model would not exist, within a pure capitalistic orthodoxy, and it amounted, in macroeconomical terms, to indirect subsidies to publishers from research agencies that were mainly funded by the states, ( but also by foundations and private sector ). I was also able to show that the "Open Access" business model would indeed generate huge savings in the long run for the states, while adopting a policy that would look good in front of transition countries that are demanding some real action to bridge the digital divide. In a sense, this was a most welcome proposition, because European diplomats were scratching their heads to find ways to bridge the digital divide at the minimal cost, and then I was proposing a way that would save money ! It sounded like a miracle to them. In short, Open Access is a "win/win" proposition. I had also several heated and emotional discussions with the Italian president, that finally understood that I would never gave up. At the end of a special meeting between the EU delegation and the European Civil Society, he gave a tap on my shoulder telling me that the EU would not object any longer to "Open Access".

My main problem, at this stage, is that even if I could find a consensus on the texts, there was no more states willing to take care of proposing my recommendations, because the paragraphs concerning "Access to Knowledge" in the Declaration of Principles and in the Plan of Action have been closed to further discussions. The schedule was now very tight, and the session president was not willing to re-open for discussion any paragraph that has now been wholly approved, because the whole Summit was running short of time. Therefore, a chief of delegation must have to ask first the session president H.E Asko NUMMINEN to be authorized to re-open the discussion, a task that a professional ambassador ( unless from a very powerful country ) would not like to assume responsibility. Australia, and Fiji would not fight again for it. The French ambassador H.E Michel Peissik, and other diplomats like Bruno Oudet told me that to re-open for discussion those paragraphs would be a nearly impossible feat. Then arrived, at last, on Wednesday 12 at night, H.E Dr. Diana SIMIC to "save the world", as she said half-jokingly,

The first thing was to be allowed to re-open the paragraph 25 (ex 23) (see version 6 - 12 Nov ) now closed. Since H.E Dr. Diana SIMIC just arrived to the summit, and was a deputy minister, it was hoped that H.E Asko NUMMINEN would be accept her request to re-open the paragraph. To our dismay, he did not agree at first, because the session was behind schedule and he was afraid of any further delay. However, I managed to see again H.E Asko NUMMINEN and to carefully explain to him that a consensus has been reached on this topic, but the question was closed before my many shuttles between delegations ended, and not much time should eaten up on this issue. I added that "Open Access" was listed among the "non negotiable" items then under preparation ( later called the Essential Benchmarks ) by the Civil Society. Finally, H.E Asko NUMMINEN agreed to let re-open the paragraph 25 !. H.E Adama SAMASSEKOU, president of the PrepComs, always very friendly towards the Civil Society and me, was also very supportive on this procedural issue.

A first step has been won, but the fight was not over.. Dr. Diana SIMIC insisted to review with the US delegation our proposed text and this turned out to a very wise move. I do not know if it is because of my "wishful listening" or because the US diplomat has been nice to me because she thought it was impossible to re-open this closed paragraph, anyway when she realized that the paragraph was to be re-opened, she said that the US would object to our current proposal. On a defensive posture, the US science officer stressed that other scientific organizations told her they were satisfied with the current text that has been written with the "best interest of science" in mind. I must concede that the US science officer, a very capable and clever lawyer, had a good judgment on some other scientific issues in the sense it was better to have no text than a bad text. I followed her advices on those topics, but we were fighting concerning scientific publishing. Concerning the text, it must be underlined that the current text was now containing the stronger "We strive" instead of "We encourage" thanks to Iran who held an informal negotiation with the US on this topic and it was not conceivable that we might get back to the weaker "We encourage". This was good, but also it made it tougher to add anything to it. Our proposal to simply have "We strive for promoting open access" was flatly rejected by the US. Anyway, this draft (version 6 - 12 Nov ) while being approved by the European Union because of the reference to intellectual property rights, was not much to the taste of China. We were in the middle of very intense and emotional negotiations with the US delegation, when Dr. SIMIC, by a stroke of genius, proposed not to modify the existing text (that has been mostly written by the US delegate), but to add including open access initiatives for scientific publishing at the end of the sentence. The US delegate agreed at last !. Dr SIMIC "saved the world" !. Then I shuttled to the Chinese delegation that agreed. Meanwhile, Dr. SIMIC came to submit with her brightest smile, our latest proposal to the Italian president of the EU delegation, who did not object because the text included the word "initiatives" despite losing the mention to IPRs. Everything seemed to be OK for "show time".

Very wisely, Dr. SIMIC waited for a moment when the assembly was idle. This happens from time to time, when delegates want to examine carefully in writing, a proposition made by a state. People are waiting to get the written document and to read it. If I remember well, it was a recommendation brought by El Salvador ( a small state whose delegate was quite smart in proposing skillfully written recommendations to break diplomatic deadlocks ). Dr. SIMIC proposed on the floor our recommendation while I just brought to H.E president Numminen, the final printed version of it. We kept our breathe... nobody supported it but nobody objected to it ! President Numminen formally considered the recommendation as approved,and that was it !. It was 11 PM !. Dr. SIMIC and me, all seated at the Croatia desk, were so happy !. The people from the Botswana delegation nearby turned to us, raising their thumb upward, congratulating us. Brazilian delegates also were all smile. I came to see the Italian president, and in an outpour of latin emotion, I said to him "molto grazie", and we warmly shook hands !. The US delegation was at the upper floor and could not be seen, but the US science adviser came to see us, and told us, that if it had been any objection to it, the US delegation was ready to support us. A real miracle had happened !. H.E Adama Samassekou, later came to congratulate Dr. Simic and me. I have special thanks to make to H.E Adama Samassekou because he always brought encouragements to me, and this made a real difference in times of doubt and despair.

A bitter surprise came however the next day. Friday 14. While I was seated, waiting for the Civil Society press conference to begin, I read the latest draft version of the day of the plan of action, and I had a real shock when I realized that the paragraph, that I considered as "half-baked" in September : i) Encourage initiatives to support free and affordable access to open access journals and books, and open archives for scientific information. has been transformed into an even worse language : i)Encourage initiatives to facilitate access, including free and affordable access, to publicly available journals and books,and open archives for scientific information. .
The stunning story is that while we were fighting successfully on the floor on Thursday night concerning the Declaration of Principles, unknown to us, an an ad hoc working group ( working in parallel with the discussion on the Declaration ) modified this paragraph. The mission of this ad hoc group was to work only on the paragraphs that were left open for discussions, i.e the paragraphs enclosed by square brackets. The paragraph C3 i) was not under square brackets. However, at the request of the Russian delegate, that did not understood the language of the text, as an "editorial act", without intention to modify the substance, the text has been "re-edited" with catastrophic consequences for "Open Access". Furthermore, when I came back to see Dr. Simic, it was too late for Croatia to do anything, because Croatia as well as all other states has adopted the current text under the impression that no modification to text closed to discussion ( that is not under square brackets) was performed. In the then prevailing haste, the printed version of the text that has been adopted by the assembly was not available. The assembly gave its assent blindly. After consultation with the Russian delegation, the scientific officer of this delegation understood the true meaning of the text and told me that Russia would not object to the restoration of the original text, The delegate from Kenya, Mrs Mercy Wanjau, that was so kind to "Open Access" in September,while chairing the special ad hoc group on "Access to Information", was really feeling a sense of responsibility, and tried her best to help restore the original text as adopted in the group she chaired, but nothing could be done before the PrepCom3A session ended, late at night around midnight on Friday.

To summarize: during PrepCom3A, a major victory has been achieved in the Declaration of Principles. The language is very strong, far stronger than in the Plan of Action. However, because of yet another unwilling blunder, there was a new problem that was to be solved in the Plan of Action. Life is never easy...