The World Summit on the Information Society poses more questions than solid agreements, in spite of the official promise to turn it into a "summit of solutions". The Tunis Summit has not been vanguardist and in many aspects Geneva commitments and declarations were reaffirmed. Being a four-year decision-making process, more results were indeed expected, although the opening up of spaces for dialogue on fundamental issues, whose results will have to be reviewed later on, should also be highlighted as positive. To be continued... [En español]
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One of the most hotly contested issues at ICANN's 28th International Public Meeting (26-30 March 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a draft proposal regarding the introduction of new generic top-level domains and its impact on free expression and national sovereignty.

The Global Information Society Watch 2007 report looks at state of the field of information and communication technology (ICT) policy at local and global levels and particularly how policy impacts on the lives of people living in developing countries.

The WIPO Development Agenda proposal put forward by the “Group of Friends of Development” argued that “under no circumstances can human rights – which are inalienable and universal – be subordinated to intellectual property protection”. Another dimension of this heated debate is whether IP rights are human rights. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has tried to clarify this long-standing debate by stating that IP rights are not human rights, but this approach might fall short in taking into account the threats that IP enforcement represent to human rights.

The role of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a pure discussion forum - “a neutral, non-binding and non-duplicative process” as the EU presidency put it - was intensively discussed during the IGF consultation meetings that were held in February 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland. While hailed as a “liberation” of the bounds of classical diplomacy by some, several governments and NGOs ask for more formalised output.

A new international treaty to preserve the rich diversity of the world's means of cultural expression from the dangers of globalization topped the needed total of 30 ratifications and enters into force on 18 March 2007. The new Convention reaffirms the sovereign right of States to elaborate cultural policies with a view "to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions and reinforce international cooperation" while respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Bandwidth is the life blood of the world's knowledge economy, but it is scarcest where it is most needed: in the developing nations of Africa which require low cost communications to accelerate their socioeconomic development. Few educational centres on the continent have any internet access. For those that can afford it, their costs are usually thousands of times higher than for their counterparts in the developed world, and even Africa's most well endowed centres of excellence have less bandwidth than a home broadband user in North America or Europe, and it must be shared amongst hundreds or even thousands of users.