PrepCom 3B - Second Resumed Session
5 - 6 & 9 December 2003

ACTIVITY REPORT

The Science for Society meeting and General Assembly of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) took place in Mexico City( 1-5 December 03). I got aware of this meeting very late, but I managed to make a phone call to Prof. Yves Qu�r� ( Acad�mie des Sciences, France ), one of the co-chair of the IAP Executive Committee, explaining that we would hope that the IAP would take a positiion in favor of Open Access at their meeting. Latter on (2 December 03), I sent to Yyes Qu�r�, by fax, a call to the InterAcademy Panel, also a fax to Prof. Yuan-Tseh Lee ( member of the SI group advisory board ). On December 5, the IAP issued several statements, one statement dealt with Access to Scientific Information. This statement never includes the word "Open Access", but it recommends however that electronic access to journal content be made available worldwide without cost as soon as possible, within one year or less of publication for scientists in industrialized nations, and immediately upon publication for scientists in developing countries;. it is also said that : For both the publishers of scientific journals and the intergovernmental organizations, providing free content to developing countries will have a minimal financial impact. Sales to these countries are small compared to the revenue generated from sales to more developed countries. Moreover, the cost of implementing the technology for custom web access for selected countries is low. ( For details. ). The technique that is being alluded to is the one advocated by the National Academies Press (NAP) would allow free access to clients based in transition countries. This technique is based on the IP address of the client and is provided by a private localization service. It is an interesting idea, but science content is still left unavailable to the many poor researchers, teachers and students in supposedly rich countries. The technique might not be sufficiently foolproof since it might suffice to log through a gateway located in a transition country or to use cloaking non-commercial or commercial software ( Anonymizer.com, Steganos, etc.. ). It remains to be seen if this technique offers a secure and attractive option to revenue-oriented publishers ( NAP does not seem to fall this category, see their very interesting Open Book Interface ). Fortunately, the IAP statement had no negative impact on the WSIS. As an epilog to this advocacy effort, it must be noted that, on 29 Dec 2003 one eminent IAP member, the Chinese Academy of Science undersigned the Berlin declaration, so there is some hope that the IAP panel might take a firmer stance in the future. Since the Centre International de Conf�rence de Gen�ve ( C.I.C.G ) was booked for another conference, this last part of the PrepCom3 tool place in the Palais des Nations. In fact, one might wonder why the WSIS summit did not take place here. However, the PrepCom3B occured not in the main building but in a smaller building. The security was high, and for the time during the WSIS, Civil Society representatives were not allowed to enter the conference halls and to assist to the negotiations. This was rather ridiculous, and gave a very bad impression to the few NGOs that were present and novice to the WSIS. Needless to say, this limited my involvement. However, mixing with the crowd of diplomats, I was able to sneak once into the conference hall and meet the diplomats that I need to discuss with. No diplomat complained about my presence... So far I am aware, the Summit of Cities and Local Authorities (Lyon, December 5,2003) seemed to have little influence on the WSIS negotiations. Since there was no cybercaf� at the Palais des Nations, most part of the Civil Society was at the CyberCaf� of the ITU preparing the Summit and I commuted several times between the ITU and the Palais des Nations.. As I just arrived, I was lucky to meet, at the Palais des Nations cafeteria, Dr. Diana SIMIC and the Kenya representative, Ms. Mercy WANJAU discussing the best strategy to restore into the Plan of Action, the original PrepCom3 September text : i) Encourage initiatives to support free and affordable access to open access journals and books, and open archives for scientific information. that has been transformed into i)Encourage initiatives to facilitate access, including free and affordable access, to publicly available journals and books,and open archives for scientific information. . At this very late stage, there was no way to ask for a better language. I could have only a few discussions in the lobbies with key summit officials and a few delegations like China. The negotiations were conducted by the Kenya representative Mrs Mercy Wanjau, and Dr. Simic whose account is the following : The lobbying that was done by Mrs Wanjau was as hard as during the PrepCom3A. Finally, I prepared the written proposal on my TabletPC stating that Kenya and Croatia asked for the change, and we had it printed and distributed to key delegations and the session president. We decided to have Kenya propose the change as Mrs Wanjau was chair of the workgroup for access to information in September. We had to lobby with Russian delegation again since they were the ones who introduced the "editorial" change. We did have moral support from key Summit officials. Without this support, I doubt we might have been allowed by the session president to propose the change. Mrs. Wanjau said after this second victory: "This proves that everything is possible! " . Mrs Wanjau and Dr. Simic must be warmly thanked! Triple cheers ! On Tuesday 9, the PrepCom3B reconvened for a last session, to discuss questions related to Internet Gouvernance. I did not assist to this session that was outside the scope of my advocacy topics, furthermore, I was too busy at Palexpo, preparing the Summit that was to begin on Wednesday 10.

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WSIS-SI.ORG     WSIS CIVIL SOCIETY WORKING GROUP

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