<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear Peter,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This is timely and I have a related point to make.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In Geneva in the trade community there is discussion on what the elements of a digital agenda could be. One of the highest-profile is: how can trade contribute to narrowing the digital divide, especially in LDCs. There are a number of ideas floating about - including looking at barriers to services and hardware essential to the objective - but nothing is settled.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A number of missions have heard the message that connectivity with the ability to communicate freely is a key to being able to innovate locally. It is a good message of course, and for those of you who are dealing with the trade community, you may wish to reinforce points like this. I know that we all believe free expression should be supported on its merits, but for trade people it is helpful to have a commercial argument that they can also have to sell at home, especially in capitals where free expression online is not widely admired.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Finally, any thoughts that you have on how trade policy can foster narrowing the digital divide would be very timely. I’m happy to socialise any that people can come up with.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Regards, Nick</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 16 Sep 2016, at 12:19, Peter Micek <<a href="mailto:peter@accessnow.org" class="">peter@accessnow.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Hello everyone,<span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><p style="font-size:12.8px;margin-bottom:13pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class=""><span style="font-family:arial" class="">Over the past year, you may have seen news regarding <a target="_blank" href="https://share.america.gov/globalconnect/" class="">Global Connect</a>, a U.S. sponsored initiative that aims to bring 1.5 billion people online by 2020. In <a target="_blank" href="http://bestbits.net/global-connect-initiative/" class="">September of last year</a>, a diverse group of civil society organizations published a letter in support of the initiative, and in <a target="_blank" href="http://bestbits.net/finance-ministers-global-connect/" class="">April of this year</a>, a second letter was presented to Finance Ministers around the world to </span><font face="arial" class="">to urge increased access to rights-respecting ICTs and broadband connectivity.</font></p></span><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><p style="font-size:12.8px;margin-bottom:13pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class=""><span style="font-family:arial" class="">The
initiative is progressing and included a meeting that took place
following the April letter between the U.S. Secretary of State and the
President of the World Bank. Many Finance Ministers also participated in
that event at the World Bank designed at financing Global Connect. </span><span style="font-family:arial" class="">However, despite the letters, the </span><span style="font-family:arial" class="">IEEE Report-out document that</span><span style="font-family:arial" class=""> came out from the meeting, barely registered human rights, freedom of expression, and the right to privacy.</span></p></span><p style="font-size:12.8px;margin-bottom:13pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class=""><span style="font-family:arial" class="">A
few of us have started to work on a set of human rights-based
principles to inform connectivity initiatives including Global
Connect. Given the renewed attention on connectivity, we see this as a
good opportunity to develop a set of principles that addresses the human
rights dimension of access, and that guide human rights as a foundation
for rolling out connectivity - from participation of marginalized
voices, to the nature of contractual arrangements, to protection of
opinion online.</span></p><p style="font-size:12.8px;margin-bottom:13pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class=""><span style="font-family:arial" class="">Some of the strategy and goals moving forward may include:</span></p><div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><b class="">- short-term - </b>develop the CS draft set of general principles to be officially endorsed by the Global Connect initiative.<b class=""><u class=""><font color="#ff0000" class=""> For that, we need you to provide feedback by September 23rd. </font></u></b></div><div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><b style="font-size:12.8px" class="">- mid-term -</b><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""> Make those principles more concrete and implementable within IFIs standards for investment and to which Bank staff is bound to </span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><b class="">- long-term -</b> going
even further, develop and implement Human Rights Due Diligence for IFIs
ICT investments, building upon documents HR organizations are already
working on for other HR areas impacted by the Banks work </div><div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class=""></div><span style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial" class="">Right now much of the discussion is centering around outstanding connectivity issues being essentially an engineering problem.</span><span style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial" class=""> </span><span style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial" class="">The
risk of course, if human rights do not inform connectivity initiatives,
is the roll out of a censored, throttled, monitored, militarized
internet and could deepen inequalities within societies.</span><br class=""><p style="font-size:12.8px;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class=""><span style="font-family:arial" class="">We are using existing documents (i.e. </span><a target="_blank" style="font-family:arial" href="http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/Internet/Documents/UNPAN95735.pdf" class="">WSIS+10 Outcome Document</a><span style="font-family:arial" class="">, Human Rights Council </span><a target="_blank" style="font-family:arial" href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G14/082/83/PDF/G1408283.pdf?OpenElement" class="">A/HRC/RES/26/13</a><span style="font-family:arial" class="">, Net Mundial, </span><a target="_blank" style="font-family:arial" href="http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/charter/" class="">internet rights and principles charte</a><span style="font-family:arial" class="">r, and </span><a target="_blank" style="font-family:arial" href="https://www.apc.org/en/system/files/APC_charter_EN_0.pdf" class="">APC Internet Rights Charter</a>) <span style="font-family:arial" class="">to
inform these principles (draft attached). We would like to welcome you
to join our efforts to create rights-respecting principles to help
inform the Global Connect Initiative. Our</span><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""> goal is to present these principles for adoption during the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.imf.org/external/am/2016/index.htm" class="">October meeting</a> of
the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), where the <b class="">Working Group on
Human Rights</b> <b class="">will also be launched</b>. This work is part of our advocacy
effort to ensure that human rights is a part of the MDBs grants and
loans and efforts under Global Connect.</span></p><div style="margin:2px 0px 0px" class=""><div class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><img src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif" class="">If you are interested, please find the draft principles attached. You can also comment on them and make suggestions here: </span><br class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><a target="_blank" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zZkPImVvrcEYcd9G5jQrOfxWm91761tm-tQtHRMqrSs/edit#" class="">https://docs.google.com/docume<wbr class="">nt/d/1zZkPImVvrcEYcd9G5jQrOfxW<wbr class="">m91761tm-tQtHRMqrSs/edit#</a></span></div></div><span class=""><p style="font-size:12.8px;margin-bottom:13pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class=""><span style="font-family:arial" class="">Thank
you and please let us know if you are interested in working with us or
if you have any questions.</span></p><p style="font-size:12.8px;margin-bottom:13pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial" class="">Best,</p></span>Peter Micek, Access Now<br class=""></div>Carolina Rossini, Public Knowledge<br clear="all" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""><br class="">-- <br class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Peter Micek<br class=""><div class="">Global Policy & Legal Counsel<br class="">Access Now | <a target="_blank" href="http://www.accessnow.org/" class="">accessnow.org</a> <br class=""><a target="_blank" href="http://rightscon.org/" class="">rightscon.org<br class=""></a><br class=""><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" class=""><span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: arial; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" class="">tel: </span>+</span><span style="font-size:13px;font-family:arial,sans,sans-serif" class=""><a target="_blank" value="+18884140100" href="tel:1-888-414-0100%20x709" class="">1-888-414-0100 x709</a></span><br class=""><span class="">PGP: 0xA5BD70B0</span><br class="">Fingerprint: 6CFE 8E9F ED8E 66B8 BE38 EA59 002C EEF5 A5BD 70B0<br class=""><br class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><b class="">Subscribe </b>to</span><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class=""> the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.accessnow.org/campaign/#sign-up" class="">Access Now Express</a></span>, our weekly newsletter</span><i style="font-size:12.8px" class=""> </i><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">on digital rights </span><span class=""></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</div></div></div>
<span id="cid:CC98E27E-C4BA-48DC-BFCC-298F579285E1@local"><Connectivityandhumanrights-16Sept-Open.docx></span><span id="cid:45A44A22-B931-4D0C-8260-A2F9FC7CF747@local"><Connectivityandhumanrights-16Sept-Open.odt></span>____________________________________________________________<br class="">You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br class=""> <a href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net" class="">bestbits@lists.bestbits.net</a>.<br class="">To unsubscribe or change your settings, visit:<br class=""> <a href="http://lists.bestbits.net/wws/info/bestbits" class="">http://lists.bestbits.net/wws/info/bestbits</a></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>