ARTICLE 19 Critiques Right to Communicate Draft

["John Barker" <johnb@article19.org.za>]

PRESS RELEASE

4 February 2003– for immediate release

 

ARTICLE 19 CRITIQUES RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE DRAFT

 

Serious flaws in a draft Declaration on the Right to Communicate, circulated by C. Hamelink in December 2002, are outlined in an ARTICLE 19 analysis published today.1 The draft Declaration seeks to impose a number of vague, broad restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, contrary to international law. Equally seriously, it fails to elaborate clearly the implications of the right to communicate and what States need to do to respect this right.

 

The draft Declaration circulated by Hamelink seeks to impose a number of wide-ranging and in some cases thoroughly discredited restrictions on freedom of expression. One example of many is its requirement of protection against misleading information. False news provisions have been widely abused around the world and have been condemned by both international and national courts. The right to communicate must, at a minimum, respect established rights, including the right to freedom of expression.

 

It also fails to set out in any useful detail the positive content of the right to communicate. Several of its provisions reiterate, word-for-word, rights already recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sometimes with minor, usually unhelpful, additions. And it contains only one brief clause on the issue of equitable access to the media and the means of communication, central to any legitimate conception of the right to communicate.

 

Toby Mendel, ARTICLE 19’s Law Programme Director, said:

 

“ARTICLE 19 endorses, in principle, the idea of an authoritative statement on the right to communicate. However, we are of the view that there is the potential within the framework of existing rights to accommodate the legitimate claims made in the name of the right to communicate. Any elaboration of it must not trench on recognised rights but rather offer an interpretation that expands and strengthens them.”

 

ARTICLE 19 urges other NGOs not to endorse the Hamelink Declaration, which undermines rather than promotes the further realisation of human rights. ARTICLE 19 will be releasing a comment on the right to communicate soon, analysing various proposals from a freedom of expression perspective and setting out our views on what it could usefully include.

 

ENDS

 

1.        Copies of the analysis can be found on the ARTICLE 19 website, athttp://www.article19.org/docimages/1502.doc.

 

2.        For further information contact Toby Mendel, Law Programme Director, in Canada, on +1 902 431-3688, email: toby@article19.org or Peter Noorlander, Legal Officer, in London, on +44 20 7239-1191, email: peter@article19.org.