A diverse group of civil society groups from across sub-Saharan Africa today launched a statement affirming the internet’s central role as a space to enable democratisation and promote human rights. The statement calls on a wide range of stakeholders to strengthen their support for human rights online, to extend initiatives to improve access to information, and to facilitate effective civil society participation in all governance processes addressing internet-related issues. The civil society groups from the human rights, media and ICT sectors met at the end of July in Nairobi, Kenya at a two day event organised by Global Partners & Associates, the Association for Progressive Communications, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and Ford Foundation East Africa. The explosion of digital communication technologies is arguably the most significant phenomenon of the last century, amplifying human potential across all dimensions. As such, the politically and economically powerful are increasingly seeking to consolidate and further their power over and within this new medium. The internet’s potential for democracy could be lost if inappropriate forms of regulation and control are introduced, restricting openness and creativity. In this complex environment who is there to defend the public interest? Until recently this task has fallen with the engineers responsible for developing the internet, and a small number of “early adopters” within civil society. However, a number of high profile threats to internet freedom have emerged over the last couple of years. These include cuts to internet access during the Arab Spring, threats of very restrictive copyright and surveillance legislation in the United States, and demands for a new internet governance regime that give governments greater control. These threats to internet freedom have gradually brought a wider range of human rights groups to the table. This event and the statement are testimony to this, and hopefully signify the start of a larger, stronger and more coordinated civil society voice for the internet. Read the statement here
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Tag Archives: civil society
Freedom of Expression on the Internet
We are working with project partners in India and Sri Lanka to strengthen freedom of expression on the Internet in South East Asia. This project is one of the first to apply the recent recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression. It aims to build on these, creating country specific recommendations and civil society outreach initiatives in the region.
A Forum in need of reform
The internet is changing the world. Like the printing press before it, the internet is transforming the way humans interact and instigating change, which is spreading through all elements of life. It brings with it a huge range of challenges and opportunities, not least the challenge of governing in a world which is fast changing, decentralised and trans-boundary. The issue of governance was on the agenda at the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005. The model adopted was the Internet Governance Forum – an annual open forum where all stakeholder groups (governments, businesses, civil society and the technical community) come together to discuss internet governance issues. The IGF does not make decisions or recommendations but allows multi- stakeholder, bottom-up policy to be made and shapes norms through an inclusive global dialogue. The sixth Forum was held in Nairobi, Kenya, at the end of September, but the future of the IGF is uncertain. Various countries have tired of the dialogue approach and calls for new internet policy bodies abound. Many of these come from developing countries concerned that the ‘institutional gap’ is being filled by actors who are economically or politically powerful. These include the OECD, the Council of Europe, and global companies, many of whom are western-based. In recent months, IBSA (an initiative by India, Brazil and South Africa) has called for a new global body, and China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have jointly suggested ‘an international code of conduct for the information society’. These challenges to the multi-stakeholder model are worrying. Top-down policy making is not well-suited to the internet, which is a fast-changing network of networks – some of which are publicly owned, the majority private. Furthermore, the inclusion of stakeholders other than governments is essential to prevent heavy regulation and protect openness, inclusivity and consideration of the broader public interest. At the same time, some concerns about the IGF are genuine, and if it does not contribute effectively to governing the internet, it will be sidelined. As we look towards the 2012 IGF in Azerbaijan, the challenge is daunting, but clear: the Forum must realign itself to be effective in the changing world of internet governance. A working group on improving the IGF is investigating whether it might make non-binding recommendations. This would be a positive move, enabling it to more directly influence decisions in other forums. Similarly, in Nairobi we heard growing calls for the IGF to develop a set of multi-stakeholder principles for internet governance by 2015. As the only truly global principles, these would have significant influence. There were also calls for human rights to be the main theme of the next Forum. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, in many senses, the international Magna Carta, such a theme would allow all stakeholders to see shared valued in a people-centred internet environment. Dixie Hawtin