Geneva — Following intense lobbying by media and civil society groups, the declaration to be presented to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has included more progressive clauses on freedom of expression and the role of the media in the information society.

Media and human rights organisations had threatened to boycott the official declaration if it did not include their proposals to give media the freedom to play an active role in society without fear of harassment by governments.

The draft, which was presented during the third PrepComm (preparatory meeting) for WSIS last September, read: "The existence of free and independent communication media, in accordance with the legal system of each country, is an essential requirement for freedom of expression and a guarantee of the plurality of information."

Tracey Naughton, the chairperson of the Media Caucus, a group of media workers attending WSIS, wrote to the UN Secretary General at the end of September protesting that such a clause would encourage states to enact laws that subtract from press freedom and the freedom of expression. Instead, she said, media workers wanted WSIS to declare that "freedom of expression, media freedom and editorial independence are central to any conception of an information society".

In the petition, the media workers said the overriding principle of WSIS on freedom of expression and media freedom should be Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They added that Article 19 needs to be implemented for all media regardless of the technologies used; and that security and other considerations should not be allowed to compromise freedom of expression and media freedom.

The latest versions of the Declaration and the Plan of Action (POA), which are the ones likely to be presented to the heads of state, have taken the civil society and media workers' concerns into account, though not necessarily the wording they proposed. The POA, particularly, contains more liberal aspirations for the media's role in building an information society.

Among the paragraphs in the declaration that civil society organisations have welcomed is the one that says: "Nothing in this declaration shall be construed as impairing, contradicting, restricting or derogating from the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, any other international instrument or national laws adopted in furtherance of these instruments."