The Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRPC)

The Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition is an open network of individuals and organisations based at the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) working to uphold human rights on the internet and to root internet governance processes and systems in human rights standards.

The dynamic coalition sets out to promote, and provide a space for multi-stakeholder dialogue and collaboration.  We also aim to be an umbrella platform for facilitating collaboration on human rights issues in the Internet Governance Forum process.

Members of the coalition work individually and in partnership to promote processes and instruments to frame and enforce rights on the Internet.

Objectives

More specifically, the coalition aims to:

• Raise awareness of fundamental human rights and what they mean on the Internet.
• Discuss and anchor global public policy principles to preserve the openness of the internet and ensure that its continued evolution is framed by the public interest, through open and extensive stakeholder involvement.
• Encourage all stakeholders to address issues of human and civil rights in policy-making, contributing to a people-centric discourse and policy formulation in the Internet Governance space.
• Identify ways in which human rights can be applied to the Internet and other ICT technologies, and evaluate the applicability of existing formal and informal guidelines and regulatory frameworks.
• Identify measures for the protection and enforcement of human rights on the Internet, while pushing for people-centric issues and public interest based internet governance policy making.
• Describe the duties and responsibilities of internet users and other stakeholders which, together with their rights, will serve to preserve and promote the public interest on the internet.

The Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition was formed during the Hyderabad IGF in 2008, following a decision to merge the Internet Bill of Rights and Framework of Principles for the Internet coalitions and joined later by the Freedom of Expression Coalition.

Active Participants

The IRP coalition mailing list has over 400 active participants from government departments, intergovernmental organisations, the private sector, civil society organisations, individuals, academics and the technical community, who all have a stake in the future of the Internet. For more information visit the IRPC page on the IGF website.