General Assembly: Resolution on World Summit on the Information Society

IRIS 2002-2:1/1

Ot van Daalen

De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek The Hague

On 21 December 2001, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution A/RES/56/183 that welcomes the organisation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Summit, to be held under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), will focus on bridging the digital divide by promoting development through access to information, knowledge and communications technologies. In the Resolution, the General Assembly inter alia encourages governments and all relevant United Nations (UN) bodies to participate actively in the preparatory process of the Summit and to be represented at the highest possible level at the Summit itself. It also invites the international community to make voluntary contributions in order to support the preparations for, and the actual holding of, the Summit.

The adoption of this Resolution is an important step towards the successful establishment of the WSIS. After an initiative taken by the Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU in 1998, the ITU Council decided on 28 July 2000 to proceed with the organisation of the World Summit on the Information Society. Under the patronage of the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, the Summit will be held partly in Geneva, from 10 to 12 December 2003, and partly in Tunisia, in 2005.