HR caucus proposal for CS speakers at the Summit

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Dear all,

Apparently, no one knows what is the deadline for submitting speakers 
proposals, or at least no one has provided any answer on this list...
Just in case the deadline is very close, the two members of the 
selection committee who are on this list (Robert Guerra and Rik 
Panganiban) are now well aware that the HR caucus is proposing two 
other persons, and are kindly asked to forward this to the selection 
committee.

- Shirin Ebadi for the opening ceremony (TBC early next week)
- Meryem Marzouki for other speaking slots, preferably for plenary
in addition to previous proposal:
- Bruna Faidutti

I think all members of the HR caucus would agree with me that, whatever 
the final list from the selection committee is, the selection committee 
should provide to all WSIS CS participant the list of speakers proposed 
to them, and should be ready to explain why some of them have been 
selected and others not, beyond the very general and fuzzy "balance of 
criteria: region, gender, etc.". This is a need since not all the 
proposals has been made on the plenary list.

Regarding selection process, there have been a proposal made by 
Bertrand de la Chapelle on the plenary list on October 5. This proposal 
is based on themes and issues, given the fact that, as Bertrand said:
"There are three key elements/objectives to keep in mind :
- civil society should be recognized the right to designate who speaks 
on behalf of civil society in Tunis : this means it should demonstrate 
it can make such choices (otherwise, we'll be back to the Geneva 
situation and lose a critical opportunity) 
- civil society wants some key messages to be heard by governments and 
must be clear about what they are (ie : we should structure and 
prioritize them)
- civil society wants to put in practice as much as possible gender, 
geographic and competence balance in its representation"
The selection committee should explain how this proposal (backed by 
those who answered on the plenary list) has been taken into account.

Finally, I also think all members of this caucus would agree that the 
selection committee should be made of genuine civil society people, 
deeply and honestly involved in WSIS. Being genuine civil society 
people is a condition that also applies to selected speakers, obviously.

If such minimal conditions of transparency, accountability, and 
relevance are not met, then I don't see how the final list from the 
selection committee could reasonably be agreed as "proposed by CS at 
WSIS".

Best regards,
Meryem Marzouki
Co-chair of the HR caucus.

Le vendredi, 7 oct 2005, à 19:02 Europe/Paris, Meryem Marzouki a écrit :

> Dear all,
>
> Apparently, we wont be able to hear from Shirin Ebadi before Monday. 
> I'll let you know.
> On the issue of having someone from inside the process, let's go 
> ahead, then, if you find it relevant to propose my name. At least, it 
> would be interesting to see what happens.
> There is an important question, however: what is the deadline to make 
> proposals directly to ITU? Alternatively, do you think if there could 
> be another round of CS selecting speakers, since there have been quite 
> a lot of resrvation on the selecting process and its result ? Rik, do 
> you have any idea on how these quetsions may be answered ?
> Best,
> Meryem