[IRP] Charter Strategy (was FW: Charter of Human Rights and Principles forthe Internet)

Thu Aug 19 08:23:20 EEST 2010

Ho everyone 

I sincerely apologize for the late submission of my comments. Unfortunately, I 
have been traveling back to back through out this last month.I have however read 
this document a few times and have tried to absorb it and formulate some 
comments in a meaning full way. It is good work and I thank the authors for 
their efforts. As others have suggested, we can present as a draft and a work in 
progress that way we have time to fine tune it and of course work on Section 
two. I agree about the " soft law approach  that Lisa suggested and also the 
idea of building consensus that Wolfgang suggests. This is a massive undertaking 
and  more time and input will enable us to develop it into the instrument we all 
would like it to become ....please see my comments below...

Preamble 
Second Para the sentence ....?Internet governance must therefore be guided 
by.........? till the end should be in its own paragraph as it conveys in a 
nutshell the purpose of the charter.

Human Dignity 
1 b) ?everyone has an equal right to access to the Internet ....?  Will be 
better understood and strengthened, if followed by the same or similar verbiage 
used in under 1 c)   Something that state the responsibility of all players to 
enable access. As it stands many would dispute that access is an original human 
right. (I am one of the folks that fought for this right)
 1 b) 4 Para ... Can we also include after child abuse trafficking of women and 
children...

Equality before the law
4 a)  Can we spell out that we mean all individuals regardless of the 
constituency they represent ie civil society, government and private sector. How 
then do we see the rights of entities...can we address this? 

Right to development
5c) Can we add.. ?Elimination of violence against women and children...? since 
we are referring to the MDG?s. Also add something about ...enabling education 
through the use of technology. Ensure that we don?t create a new illiteracy.

Freedom of Opinion and Expression 
6 a) and b) Can we include the responsibility and awareness of not inciting 
hate...I know that it is mentioned elsewhere..

regards and hope to see you tomorrow at 8.00 am my time right  ? California time 
?
Shaila Rao Mistry

Life is too short ....challenge the rules
Forgive quickly ... love truly ...and tenderly
Laugh constantly.....and never stop dreaming! 

________________________________
From: "Benedek, Wolfgang (wolfgang.benedek at uni-graz.at)" 
<wolfgang.benedek at uni-graz.at>
To: Lisa Horner <LisaH at global-partners.co.uk>; 
"irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org" 
<irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org>
Cc: "irp-charter at rp.lip6.fr" <irp-charter at rp.lip6.fr>
Sent: Tue, August 17, 2010 11:07:08 AM
Subject: Re: [IRP] Charter Strategy (was FW: Charter of Human Rights and 
Principles forthe Internet)

Re: [IRP] Charter Strategy (was <SPAN id="misspell-13" class="mark" >FW</SPAN>: 
Charter of Human Rights and Principles <SPAN id="misspell-14" class="mark" 
>forthe</SPAN> Internet) Thank You, Lisa, for preparing this important 
discussion. 

My vision is that the DC IRP adopts the Charter by a rough consensus and that 
other actors including individuals endorse or use  it either fully or in part. 
We need to build some consensus on the text otherwise it will have no authority 
and cannot serve ist purpose of providing thr orientation needed in teh field of 
human rights in internet governance.

Wolfgang Benedek

Am 17.08.10 18:53 schrieb "Lisa Horner" unter <LisaH at global-partners.co.uk>:

Hi all
> 
>I just wanted to respond quickly to Mike?s point about the eventual ?owner? of 
>the Charter.  We?ve had some discussion about this within the coalition at 
>various meetings and on list, but never really pinned the answer down. However, 
>it?s important that we all have the same understanding of what we?re planning to 
>do with the Charter.  I?d like to discuss this during the coalition business 
>meeting (separate from the official DC workshop) at the IGF...we need to define 
>a strategy for the wider consultation process and also be clear on our short, 
>medium and long term goals and objectives.
> 
>From my point of view, I don?t think we should necessarily be aiming towards the 
>formal adoption of the Charter by the UN in the short term.  Strong feelings 
>have been expressed by a number of people working within the human rights field 
>that any attempt to push for new rights standards relating to civil and 
>political rights (note ? I know our Charter is broader) at this point in time, 
>the result will be an erosion of existing rights standards.  The overall 
>direction of change at the moment is regression, for example with the recent GA 
>resolutions on the defamation of religions.
> 
>However, I do see the Charter having a positive role in terms of soft law ? an 
>attempt to create norms and informal standards from the bottom-up which may 
>eventually in the long term be institutionalised enough to be enshrined in 
>international law.  We?re effectively providing guidelines that can help to 
>interpret existing legal standards, putting digital flesh on the human rights 
>bones.  As Mike notes, there are a range of IG institutions that we?re trying to 
>influence through this work ...owing to the dispersed nature of the internet 
>governance system, ownership of a document by this by a single institution may 
>not be effective/desirable.
> 
>However, we do need to discuss this, and also be clear about goals and process 
>of reaching them.  We discussed before about not asking people or organisations 
>to endorse the Charter itself, but rather the process of applying human rights 
>to internet governance.  I doubt we would get many endorsements from outside of 
>civil society for the Charter itself, which is problematic for a 
>multi-stakeholder coalition.  However, quite a wide range of individuals and 
>organisations have expressed interest in the process.  We?ve also agreed that 
>the Charter (at least the principles and the reference to specific technologies) 
>should be a living and breathing document that evolves as technologies evolve. 
>
> 
>So maybe we could still continue to present the Charter as a process with 
>broad-based participation and ownership.  The aim of which is to shift the 
>norms, policy and practices of internet governance through providing guidance 
>and interpretation of existing international legal standards?  Different 
>coalition members and other groups could then be pursuing these goals in their 
>own arenas, institutions, countries etc.
> 
>Anyway, as Mike mentions, I don?t want to distract from our work on the 
>substance of the Charter.  In the short term, I think our energies need to be 
>focused on giving the document enough substance, rigour and backing to serve as 
>a starting point for national and international IG policy.  But we will need to 
>discuss the issues of goals and process fairly soon, so if you have any thoughts 
>now, please do share them!
> 
>All the best,
>Lisa
> 
> 
>
>From: Michael Gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com] 
>Sent: 13 August 2010 15:29
>To: Lisa Horner; 'parminder'; irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org
>Cc: irp-charter at rp.lip6.fr
>Subject: RE: [IRP] FW: Charter of Human Rights and Principles forthe Internet
>
>
>I think the terminology of "people" is probably better than "citizens" which in 
>a national context could be discriminatory against non-citizens.  
>
>
>
>This does though, raise in my mind a question--who is meant to be the "owner" of 
>the Charter.  I'm assuming the UN (GA?) but as we all know, I guess, the remit 
>of the UN in Internet/digital communications areas is a subject of some dispute 
>and even (ICANN?) areas of "non-jurisdiction" or in other case (the IGF?) shared 
>jurisdiction?
>
>
>
>This querstion of course, raises very significant issues for the medium and 
>longer term and may be a mis-direction of energies at this point but it will 
>need to be addressed at some point.
>
>
>
>BTW, I strongly agree with Parminder's point about "multi-stakeholderism" (which 
>is in fact a sister issue to the above).  The fact that certain institutions 
>(state structures) are proving less than completely effective (to a considerable 
>degree as a result of deliberate processes of undermining their capacity and 
>legitimacy) doesn't mean that we abandon them, but rather for civil society it 
>should mean that we redouble our efforts to strengthen them as frameworks for 
>democratic action and expression.
>
>
>
>Mike
>____________
>
>
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