AW: [governance] UNESCO Code of Ethics in the Information Society

Sat Nov 5 13:47:08 EDT 2011

They might understand, but their governments don’t want them to undertake a human rights based approach.

Wolfgang Benedek

Von: governance at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance at lists.cpsr.org] Im Auftrag von Meryem Marzouki
Gesendet: Samstag, 05. November 2011 18:24
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; KovenRonald at aol.com
Cc: wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de; governance at lists.cpsr.org; powerginny at gmail.com
Betreff: Re: [governance] UNESCO Code of Ethics in the Information Society

Thanks Rony!

Frankly, I'm wondering when the Unesco will stop thinking in terms of "ethics" (whose ethics, BTW?!) and start considering there are RIGHTS, which are binding governments, including when people exercise them on the Internet.... Unesco started this 15 years ago, and apparently they haven't understood yet!!
Best,
Meryem Marzouki

Le 5 nov. 2011 à 10:59, KovenRonald at aol.com<mailto:KovenRonald at aol.com> a écrit :

In a message dated 11/5/11 5:33:42 PM, wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de<mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> writes:

FYI

Who knows whether the document was adopted as proposed?

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002126/212696e.pdf

wolfgang
_________

Dear Wofgang --

It was not adopted as proposed.

The United States in particular objected. There was a long and rather acrimonious debate, with the sides divided along predictable lines. Germany and Denmark proposed alternate concluding language simply putting things off, but that was not acceptable to the US.

Finally, a consensus was reached in the Communciation Program Commission, after an extra nite session on Tuesday and a an informal early morning negotiating session on Wednesday.

It reads:

"Invites the Director General at the 189th session of the Executive Board [in about 6 months] to suggest possible ways that the Organization could address issues of ethical dimensions of the information society."

In other words an ethics code mandated intergovernmentally is not on the cards.

The resolution must still be adopted by the UNESCO General Conference plenary in several days, but that shouldn't be a proble since the commission contains representatives of all the meber states.

The Secretariat seems likely to to suggest extended discussion of the issues in a revived Infoethics forum. UNESCO used to organize annual Infoethics conferences, but gave it up several years ago. The Secretariat has already successfully gotten agreement of member states in the Commission to revive those meetings.

Best regards, Rony Koven
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