[governance] Inputs for synthesis paper

Thu Sep 4 21:30:25 EDT 2008

Karen and all,

  Your correct.  And your suggestion IMHO is a good one.

karen banks wrote:

> hi milton, all
>
> in terms of defining rights.. just to remind (and apologies if i sound
> like a broken record) that several groups now have attempted to do
> this including APC, the BOR coalition, global partners, UNESCO, the
> work of the WSIS CS Human Rights caucus and the CRIS campaign
>
> so let's build on the collective work done this past 10  years or so
>
> if i recall correctly (lisa - please correct me if i'm wrong) - global
> partners put together a document that mapped such documents.. it might
> be useful to refer to that (and update if necessary) in this work
>
> i think we have a good chance of influencing the cairo agenda if we
> build this work carefully and inclusively (not to suggest we aren't
> already) over the next 6-12 months
>
> karen
>
> At 19:51 04/09/2008, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
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>> boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C90EBF.4EBACFA5"
>>
>>
>> OK, I just made some extensive edits to the rights statement. A lot
>> of the small stuff was editorial, there was redundancy and
>> awkwardness in many sentences, perhaps reflecting the fragmentary
>> approach of a shared doc. I hope people agree on the stylistic
>> improvements.
>>
>> Substantively, I tried to do two things:
>>
>> First, make it clearer that the definition and application of rights
>> talk is contested and complicated -- and use that to bolster the
>> argument that that makes it a good focus for IGF Egypt. In line with
>> this, I added a quotation from the Tunis Agenda at the beginning.
>>
>> Second, group and expand certain discussions to run in a more
>> coherent and structured manner. For example, there were scattered
>> references to privacy which I tried to consolidate in a single para.
>> and expand a bit.
>>
>> For those not on the Google docs list I append the statement below
>>
>> Milton Mueller
>> Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
>> XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
>> ------------------------------
>> Internet Governance Project:
>> http://internetgovernance.org
>>
>>
>> IGCs input -1 to the synthesis paper for IGF, <?xml:namespace
>> prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
>> />Hyderabad.
>>
>> Rights and the Internet as the over-arching theme for IGF-4 in
>> Egypt
>>
>> The Tunis Agenda (para. 42) invoked human rights when it reaffirmed
>> a global "commitment to the freedom to seek, receive, impart and use
>> information" and affirmed that "measures undertaken to ensure
>> Internet stability and security, to fight cybercrime and to counter
>> spam, must protect and respect the provisions for privacy and
>> freedom of expression as contained in the relevant parts of the
>> Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Declaration of
>> Principles." However, little follow up work has been done to enact
>> these commitments to basic human rights in Internet governance.
>>
>> The Internet Governance Caucus strongly recommends that Rights and
>> the Internet be made the overarching theme for IGF-4 in Egypt, and
>> that the IGF-4s program be framed by the goal of developing a
>> rights-based discourse in the area of Internet Governance. The
>> Caucus has already expressed support for the letter on this subject
>> which was sent to the MAG by the Dynamic Coalition on an Internet
>> Bill of Rights. The IGC offers the IGF assistance in helping to
>> shape such a discourse at the IGF meetings, and specifically to help
>> make Rights and the Internet an overarching theme for IGF-4 in
>> Egypt.
>>
>> A complex new emerging ecology of rights and the internet
>>
>>  One important purpose of a discourse on rights should be to clarify
>> and reach greater consensus on how Internet rights are defined, how
>> they relate to pre-existing definitions of human rights, and which
>> ones need to be internationally recognized and strengthened. There
>> are currently basic philosophical differences, even among civil
>> society actors, over what constitutes a right and whether human
>> rights inhere only in individuals or can also be assigned to
>> collectivities.
>>
>>
>> The openness and diversity of the internet are underpinned by widely
>> recognized (but still imperfectly enforced) basic human rights: the
>> individual right to freedom of expression and to privacy. To some,
>> conceptions of rights and the internet may also extend to the area
>> of positive and collective rights  for instance a right to Internet
>> access, or a right of cultural expression - including the right to
>> have an Internet in ones own language, which can inform the
>> important IGF thematic area of cultural diversity. Others contest
>> these positive and collective claims, viewing them as worthy policy
>> goals but not as rights.
>>
>> Many important internet policy areas, like network neutrality, are
>> being framed in terms of rights, such as a right to access and share
>> information, or as an extension of freedom of expression itself. The
>> right of the public to access government-produced information
>> presents itself in a wholly new manner in a digital environment,
>> where information is often publicly sharable at little or no extra
>> cost. Positive acts of withholding digital public information from
>> citizens in fact can be looked upon as a form of censorship. All of
>> these rights-based conceptions may be included in the IGF openness
>> theme area. Other rights such as the right of association and the
>> right to political participation may have important new implications
>> in the internet age, including the right to participate in the
>> shaping of globally applicable internet policies.
>>
>> While the internet opens unprecedented economic, social and
>> political opportunities in many areas, many fear that it may at the
>> same time be further widening economic, social and political
>> divides. It is for this reason that development has been a central
>> theme for the IGF meetings to date. In this new, more global and
>> digital context it might be useful to explore what the term "right
>> to development" means.
>>
>> With respect to privacy rights, corporations and governments are
>> increasingly able to extend digital tentacles into peoples homes
>> and personal devices, in manners invisible to consumers and
>> citizens.Consumers of digital products thus face new challenges
>> including the right to know and completely own the products and
>> services they pay for. Technological measures to monitor and control
>> user behavior on the internet is becoming increasingly
>> sophisticated, and often outrun public policies and traditional
>> concepts of what rights users have.
>>
>> While property rights are of considerable importance, their
>> applicability and mutations in the the digital environment have led
>> to widespread political contention over the proper scope of
>> copyrights, trademarks and patents. In fact, intellectual property
>> is emerging as a primary area of socio-economic conflict in the
>> information society.  The IGF can explore issues surrounding the
>> public interest principles which underpin IPR alongside the concept
>> of a right to access knowledge in the digital space. It can also
>> explore how individuals' property right to own, build, test, and use
>> consumer electronics, computers and other forms of equipment can be
>> reconciled with the regulation of technical circumvention to protect
>> copyrights.
>>
>>
>>
>> We recognize that while it is relatively easy to articulate and
>> claim rights it is much more difficult to implement and enforce
>> them. We also recognize that rights claims can sometimes conflict or
>> compete with each other. For example, a claim that there is a right
>> to Internet access may imply an obligation on states to fund and
>> provide such access, but it is likely that if states are responsible
>> for supplying internet access that there will also be strong
>> pressures on them to exert controls over what content users can
>> access using public funds and facilities.  There can also be
>> uncertainty about the proper application of a rights claim to a
>> factual situation. The change in the technical methods of
>> communication often undermines pre-existing understandings of how to
>> apply legal categories.
>>
>>
>>
>> These complexities, however, only strengthen the case for using the
>> IGF to explicitly discuss and debate these problems. There is no
>> other global forum where such issues can be raised and explored in a
>> non-binding context.
>>
>>
>> Internet governance has up to this time largely been founded in
>> technical principles and, increasingly, on the internets
>> functionality as a giant global marketplace. With the internet
>> becoming  increasingly central to many social and political
>> institutions, an alternative foundation and conceptual framework for
>> IG can be explored. It is the view of the IG Caucus that a
>> right-based framework will be may be appropriate for this purpose.
>>
>>  It is the Caucus view that the IGF is the forum best suited to
>> take up this task. This process should start at the IGF Hyderabad,
>> where workshops on rights issues are being planned.  These issues
>> will also hopefully figure prominently in the main sessions. The IGC
>> fully expects that these discussions will help the IGF work towards
>> developing Rights and the Internet as the over-arching theme of
>> the IGF-4 in Egypt.
>>
>>
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