Internet Rights and Principles Coalition
Committed to making Internet work for human rights
The Council of Europe has called upon its 47 member states to ensure that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages Internet domain names globally, creates adequate mechanisms to identify, prevent and mitigate possible breaches to human rights in its work, notably the rights to freedom of expression and privacy.
In recent years, the Snowden revelations and debates in the UK and US around the scope of government surveillance have brought the issue of privacy in the digital age a greater audience than ever before. Hanane Boujemi argues that society must change its attitude to where boundaries lie if rights are to be meaningfully protected in the online sphere.
This session, the first of four (co-) organized by the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRPC) brings together representatives from initiatives that (i) link their work in this area to the IRPC Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet, and (ii) those initiatives that underpin and develop the objectives and content of the IRPC Charter. All participants have contributed to this wider historic recognition of the formative role that international human rights law and norms play in the future of global Internet governance. It is also a workshop that is taking place in the “post-Snowden” context of Internet governance decision-making, which throws up a number of pressing issues around inclusiveness and participation, rule of law, jurisdiction, technical standards, and the ongoing need to educate and raise awareness about rights and fundamental freedoms in the online world.
The panel presented a series of case studies and problematics around the value and necessity of anonymous communication online. Panelists from a broad cross-section of multi-stakeholders contributed various perspectives that called for evidence-based policy reform to establish and protect the right of anonymous online communication.
This report hopefully captures the main themes and points for further discussion. An almost live transcript of the session can be found on the live blog link at Internet Rights and Principles Coalition website.
This panel considered the legal, technical, and political practicalities that emerge when the right to privacy and freedom of information are considered as interrelated; it discussed the differences in stakes, levels of action and of analysis at this intersection of fundamental freedoms online alongside their consequences in practical terms for ordinary internet users, content producers on the web, activists, and media professionals.
UNESCO will organize from 3 – 4 March 2015, an international multistakeholder conference to discuss the first draft of the Comprehensive Study on Internet-related issues. This major global study will capture and explore global perspectives on the new and emerging trends that are shaping the Internet space and our future. The meeting will propose recommendations for responses to Internet-related issues in UNESCO’s fields of competence.
Thursday 26th February, 5.30 – 8.00PM.
Goldsmiths College, London.
This panel addresses the human rights implications for the future of the internet as struggles over its ownership and control gather steam at the national and international level.
This event is hosted by the Media & Communications department; co-organized by the Global Media and Transnational Communications MA Program, Media Forum, and Radical Media Forum.