RE: [hr-wsis] WGIG Working papers

["Rikke Frank Joergensen" <rfj@humanrights.dk>]

I agree.. we need to start by general positions on HR vis a vis IG, or we will drown in details.

Below is some draft text I wrote while trying to sort out the issue for myself. Perhaps it can be helpful as a starter...  Rikke

HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNET GOVERNANCE
DRAFT VERSION, 10.11.04 - RFJ

1. The protection of Human Right standards is the responsibility of governments. This includes the protection of individuals' rights in relation to private parties. Governments have ratified, i.e. politically and legally committed to uphold human right standards, private parties have not. Governments can be held accountable before a court for breach of HR treaties, private parties can only directly be held responsible to the extent governments have transposed HR standards into national legislation covering both private and public parties.

2. A main challenge with regard to internet regulation relates to its trans-natural nature. International agreements have traditionally been based on the assumption of territorial jurisdiction, whereas internet is a global communication forum. Furthermore, internet touches upon a number of issues that are currently being dealt with in a number of different issue-specific international institutions. 

3. One of the results of the World Summit of the Information Society in Geneva was the acceptance of the internet as a global common. This implies access for all countries to participate in policy decisions, coordination and enjoyment of this common good. It also implies responsibilities to ensure that human right standards are met within this context.

4. Internet has a historical background as a US invention and is still "run" on contract by the US government. The current forum for managing internet as a global common is a private party - ICANN.  The role and functions of ICANN de facto involves policy issues. Whether defined broadly or narrowly, at least human right issues of privacy (Whois) and freedom of expression (domain names) are at stake in the current ICANN functions. 

5. Recognizing Internet as a common good, which implies policy formulation and enforcement requires a revision of existing structures to ensure that public policy issues are formulated, coordinated and supervised by governments. This is important not least to ensure human rights protection and enforcement, including oversight mechanisms. 

6. Furthermore, a number of trans-national issues related to internet lack a global space for political discussions and agreement, e.g. issues such as privacy, freedom of expression, access to information, IPR, spam, illegal content, prohibition against discrimination etc. A stronger international cooperation is crucial to ensure that current issue-specific discussions and agreements are dealt with in a broader human rights context, not least to ensure that standards of e.g. privacy, access to information and the right to enjoy own culture are ensured within an information society context. A number of these rights are de facto threatened and in the defensive role at present. 

7. Holding governments responsible for public policy does not exclude the active participation of private parties and civil society; however there must be clear divisions of responsibility. Mere technical functions must be separated from public policy decisions to ensure that the latter comply with basic democratic principles of inclusiveness, transparency, legitimacy and the rule of law.

-----Original Message-----
From: Meryem Marzouki [mailto:marzouki@ras.eu.org] 
Sent: 9. februar 2005 16:54
To: hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org
Subject: [hr-wsis] WGIG Working papers

They are at: http://www.wgig.org/working-papers.html

Most probably one of our comments should be, before entering details on 
contents, to try defining our understanding of internet governance and 
thus to specify which issues should be covered by this concept and 
which ones shouldn't (because they rather should be dealt with under 
legislation, since human rights may well be directly addressed and not 
only marginally - or not - impacted. We've got here a general problem 
of sovereignty, legitimacy, representativeness, etc.).

As for now the working papers on specific issues are (and this is 
really frightening : almost eveything !):

- Administration of Internet names and IP addresses
- Administration of the Root Server system
- Peering and Interconnection
- Telecommunications infrastructure, broadband access, convergence with 
NGN
- Cyber security, cybercrime
- Competition policy, liberalization, privatization and regulations
- Multilingualization of Internet naming systems
- Spam 
- Dispute Resolution
- Security of network and information systems
- Technical Standards
- Affordable and universal access 
- Social dimensions and inclusion
- VoIP
- E-commerce
- Consumer, user protection and privacy
- Unlawful content and access protection
- Intellectual Property Rights (Executive Summary)
- Cultural and linguistic diversity
- Education and human capacity building 
                   

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