[IRP] Notes from call on preamble.

[Bertrand de La Chapelle]

Hi all,

1) on the title, I would tend to follow Meryem's approach (preference for
3), with maybe a small twist :

"Charter of Human Rights and Principles in the Internet Age" (instead of "in
the Internet Environment").

This would show that although we still are in the same "(brave new) world",
there is a paradigm shift (as per Parminder).

We could even go to : "Charter ON Human Rights and Principles in the
Internet Age", as this mostly is about the applicability of existing rights
in the digital age.

2) Regarding the more general question of a "Right to the Internet" vs a
"Right to access the Internet", I agree this is a major issue that cannot be
decided just in a small committee. This requires broader discussion.

However, I sense this is a direction history is going towards. It has an
analogy with the technical notion of universal access policies for telephony
in many countries and such a principle for the Internet has apparently been
adopted by some countries (especially in northern europe, such as Finland).
It would be useful to tap the expertise of governmental actors from such
countries (or former officials like Yrj? ?) to see what the debate was and
why the decision was taken.

Furthermore, Human Rights Charters (and national constitutions) contain many
rights that are not always fully fulfilled (eg right to education) but that
represent an objective, a higher principle. So the adoption of such a
principle would not mean that it has to be operationalized immediately.

In any case, this is a key discussion that deserves a specific treatment on
this list and more broadly. Some documentation of the state of the
discussion at the global level would also be useful, as this is becoming a
broad topic in the blogosphere and in governmental circles.

Without taking sides at that stage, wouldn't that be an important issue for
the next IGF in Kenya ?

Just my two cents.

Best

Bertrand


On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Meryem Marzouki <meryem at marzouki.info>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks Lisa for your notes. I'll try to make it shorter than Marianne;)) :
>
> Le 15 d?c. 10 ? 20:21, Lisa Horner a ?crit :
>
>
>  So please comment on the following options and say which you prefer:
>>
>> a. Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet
>>
>
> No, we are not defining rights that the Internet would enjoy
>
>
>  b. Charter of Internet Rights and Principles
>>
>
> No (same reason), moreover, we should keep *human* rights in the name
>
>
>  c. Charter of human rights and principles in the Internet environment
>>
>
> I'd prefer this one, or even rather "Charter of human rights and principles
> in the digital environment", but I understand it's important to keep
> "Internet" in the name
>
>
>  d. Charter of human rights and principles in an Internet enabled world.
>>
>
> No, we remain in the same (brave new?) world
>
> An additional note on "principles" in the name: we've already seen that
> "principles" have at least 3 different understandings, as discussed during
> our call of 24 November on the nature of the charter, see notes on this call
> from Dixie, posted on 25 novembre 2010 16:00:27 CET. Quoting Dixie's notes:
> - principles which are essentially a re-working of a human right for the
> internet (such as freedom from filtering and blocking) are not actually
> principles but are right. Then there are two types of principle:
> - legal principles (such as rule of law) and
> - implementation principles (such as interoperability and network
> neutrality)
>
> If we keep "rights and principles" in the name, at the same level, then I
> suspect the HR/legal community will interpret these are "legal principles".
> When finding that these are actually implementation principles, this might
> lead to misunderstandings.
>
> In summary, I would go for "Charter of Human Rights in the Internet
> Environment", taking for granted that principles need to be defined - and
> actually are - for the implementation and the realization of these rights.
>
> Best,
> Meryem
>
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-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle
Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

"Le plus beau m?tier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de Saint
Exup?ry
("there is no greater mission for humans than uniting humans")
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