[governance] Call for consensus - Statement by IGC supporting

Dave Kissoondoyal dave at isoc-mu.org
Thu Sep 10 13:47:37 EDT 2009


I endorse this statement and thank all for your tremendous efforts in
drafting it.

 

Dave Kissoondoyal



-----Original Message-----
From: Ginger Paque [mailto:gpaque at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 8:13 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Lisa Horner
Subject: Re: [governance] Call for consensus - Statement by IGC supporting

I support the statement and thank everyone involved in writing it and
opining.

Please, we need as many people as possible to respond with their agreement
or disagreement on the proposal. I know it was a short discussion, but we
had good input, and Lisa did a great job, given the time constraints. 

We need to know if we have consensus on this as an IGC statement.

Best, Ginger

Lisa Horner wrote: 

Hi all

We're now past the deadline for comments, so I've pasted a final version
below for the consensus call.  Please could you send a message to the list
to say if you support the statement or not.  I'll now hand over to Ginger
and Ian to finalise and coordinate it getting read out at the IGF planning
meeting.  I'll also get in touch with the DCs.

Shaila - this version includes your edits, apart from in the final para as I
think Parminder's comments made sense.  Hope that's acceptable to you.

Thanks everyone for your inputs.  I think it's a strong statement now.

All the best,

Lisa

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FINAL STATEMENT (V6) - for consensus call


The Caucus [and undersigned DCs] repeat their request that the programme for
IGF-4 in Egypt gives greater priority to human rights.  The WSIS Declaration
and Tunis Agenda strongly reaffirmed the centrality of human rights in the
information society. Despite this, human rights and associated principles
have received too little attention at the IGF so
far. This is problematic because :

*    Fundamental human rights such as the rights to freedom of expression,
privacy, civic participation, education and development are strongly
threatened by the actions and restrictive policies of a growing number of
actors vis a vis the internet, including state and private actors at both
national as well as global levels.


*    The internet presents new opportunities for upholding and advancing
human rights, for example through enhancing access to knowledge and common
resources. It is vital that we build on and enhance these opportunities.
Ignoring these avenues to uphold human rights implies a serious opportunity
cost for the well being of peoples, globally.


*    International human rights, as contained in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and confirmed by the core human rights treaties and other
universal human rights instruments, are legally binding.  The growing role
of information and communication technologies has not changed the legal
obligation of states that have ratified these instruments to respect,
protect and implement the human rights of their citizens.


*    The human rights framework is an internationally agreed set of
standards that has practical as well as ethical value.  It balances
different rights against each other to preserve individual and public
interest.  In addition to its legally binding implications, human rights are
therefore a useful tool for addressing internet governance issues, such as
how to deal with security concerns on the internet in compliance with the
rights to freedom of expression and privacy.  Besides stating the
obligations of states and governments, the human rights framework also
allows us to derive the rights and responsibilities of other stakeholders.  

The Internet Governance Caucus [and undersigned DCs] call for the human
rights dimension of all internet governance issues to be included in the
planning and implementation of all future IGF sessions, so that human rights
are given the attention they deserve as cross-cutting issues.  This should
include explicit consideration of how global, regional and national policies
affect human rights, and the development of positive policy principles to
build an open and accessible internet for all.  The Caucus [and undersigned
DCs] would like to offer assistance to the organisers of the main plenary
sessions to do this, and would like to support all stakeholders through
providing access to relevant guidelines and experts. We see this upcoming
IGF in Egypt and future IGFs as renewed opportunity to make Rights and
Principles a core theme.

  

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