[governance] Wording to prevent a deadlock (re: Jeanette)

[Lisa Horner]

Firstly, I vote yes to all three.
 
Secondly, just a a quick intervention on #3...
 
There are 2 points of contention as I see it on our #3 proposal regarding "rights".
 
1) Whether we should not talk about human rights at all because it's not strategic and will get vetoed...finding other, more widely acceptable avenues and language to talk about essentially the same issues.
 
Whilst I am in two minds about this, at the end of the day I think as civil society organisations/individuals, we shouldn't shy away from pushing for what we believe in.
 
2) The lack of clarity in the term "Internet rights and principles".
 
I fully agree that it's a phrase that lacks clarity and leaves us open to the risk of being dismissed as a session on these grounds as it was before.  The reason the dynamic coalition has this name was partly due to the merging of the "bill of rights" and "framework of principles" coalitions in 2008, and partly due to a lack of clear thinking at the time about what the coalition should be called.
 
Could we agree to talk about "human rights and policy principles that are needed to imlpement them"? Noone can dismiss "human rights" as a vague framework that lacks meaning - it's one of the "thickest" global governance frameworks that exists, is embedded in international law etc.
 
I think we did a fairly good job of defining what we were talking about for our intervention at the september open consultations.  Would that make a better statement to "recycle" than the one proposed?  I've pasted it below for info.
 
All the best,
Lisa
 

FINAL STATEMENT (V6) - for consensus call (September 2009)


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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