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CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 151
a mirror opposite to the earlier NWICO era of redistribution without
recognition.
The influence of civil society organizations like CRIS was significantly
constrained given the institutional limitations of the ITU, as opposed to
UN bodies like UNESCO. The ITU, which served as the institutional
base for the WSIS meetings, has a feeble history in terms of its relationship
to civil society. The dominant actors involved in WSIS through
the ITU were its 191 member states and the over 650 corporate actors
represented by the ominously named ‘Coordinating Committee of
Business Interlocutors’ (CBBI). 5 Scholars associated with the ‘MacBride
legacy’ like Siochrú (2004) and Hamelink (2004) have repeatedly raised
concerns about the limits of the ITU as an institutional venue capable
of fostering dialogue and deliberation through meaningful participation
in civil society. The WSIS process was preceded by the three PrepComs
(preparatory committee) meetings as well as regional meetings facilitated
by UNESCO, leading to the first summit in Geneva in December 2003.
In contrast to corporate and state representatives who followed already
established protocols within the ITU, the new procedural terms of engagement
dominated discussions amongst civil society groups in this first
phase. In the end, only recognized organizations registered through the
intergovernmental ITU and, coordinated by the Civil Society Bureau
(CSB), would count as civil society delegates. 6
Cammaerts and Carpentier (2005) have documented the participation
of the hundreds of CSOs from both the North and the South involved
in the three PrepComs (preparatory communication) meetings , as well
as the thousands of participants involved in regional meetings facilitated
by UNESCO, all of which led to the first WSIS meeting in Geneva in
December 2003. In addition, CSOs along with corporate ‘stakeholders,’
were encouraged to submit written contributions to the ITU, and CSOs
themselves mobilized through a variety of online efforts collecting information,
networking between organizations and providing information
leading up to the first meeting in Geneva, and then again to the second
meeting in Tunis (in November 2005). 7 The active participation of CSOs
in the global governance process is seen by many academic experts as positive
in and of itself by creating informal networks, contacts and expertise
(Siochrú 2004; Padovani 2004), as well as by expanding the basis for a
‘coordinated voice’ within civil society (Klenwächter 2004: 1).
The cautious optimism leading up to and around the WSIS gave
way to the realization that at most the first stage of the summit served
to enhance networks and expertise of civil society actors, and at worst
there was minimal impact on policy outcomes to change incorporating
broader objectives for social justice. As documented by many participants