[IRP] FYI - New CoE group of experts on "Rights of Internet Users"

[Dixie Hawtin]

Hi all -

Meryem, this seems like a really great opportunity for the IRP to feed in (and hopefully shape) some initiatives at the CoE to push our Charter and 10 IRPs further... thanks for putting some IRP people up as potential experts. And of course, the more IRP members who are able to finance themselves to participate as an "observer" the better. 

Moving forward, I think the best thing to do would be to identify who in the Coalition is interested in feeding in to this initiative, and then making a smaller working group to focus on this issue and coordinate IRP involvement in the group. Do we have a sense of when the CoE is going to announce who is on the expert group, and what kind of timeframe we are working on? 

Thanks again Meryem!

Also just to let everyone know - the IRP Working Group for the IGF are working on a number of workshop proposals which we will be submitting today. One is a provocative look at the concept of multi-stakeholderism, one is looking at whether access to the Internet is a human right (following up on the Oped Vint Cerf wrote earlier this year), and one is on empowering internet users (which we are co-sponsoring with the Council of Europe). I will forward the links to the proposals once they are all up online. 

In addition to this we will also have our IRP workshop, which we seek to use to really promote awareness and campaign on the 10 IRPs! 

Best,
Dixie  

-----Original Message-----
From: irp-bounces at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org [mailto:irp-bounces at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org] On Behalf Of David Goldberg
Sent: 20 April 2012 08:31
To: Meryem Marzouki
Cc: IRP
Subject: Re: [IRP] FYI - New CoE group of experts on "Rights of Internet Users"

Dear Meryem,

I could be interested in being an "observer" at the Expert Group...and I do understand what you say about that being a self-financing role...

Best wishes,

David

On 19 April 2012 18:15, Meryem Marzouki <meryem at marzouki.info> wrote:
> Dear IRP colleagues,
>
> I'm representing EDRI (European Digital Rights) as observer to the Council of Europe CDMSI (Steering Committee on Media and Information Society, which held its 1st meeting agenda here: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/CDMC/default_en.asp). Among many items on the agenda, the creation of an expert group on "Rights of Internet Users" was (MC-RIU) proposed by the Secretariat and discussed.
>
> The tentative Terms of References and workplan proposed by the Secretariat ?(see above link) were discussed during the 1st CDMSI meeting.
> Members States delegates agreed on its creation, provided that the terms of references are modified a bit, so that item (iii) of the "Main Tasks" now reads: "(iii) advise the CDMSI, upon its request, on all questions within its area of competence and on rights and responsibilities of internet users, intermediaries, and other internet actors."
>
> Anyway, the tasks remain wide enough to develop interesting work in the framework of the MC-RIU group. The main objective for the group, besides the "compendium of Internet users rights" would be to focus on existing recourses and remedies for users.
>
> The group is supposed to be formed by 13 experts (this is the maximum allowed by the available budget, since experts are reimbursed for their expenses to attend the group meetings). It is currently written that these 13 will be 7 Member States representatives and 6 independent experts. After the discussion, there will be "at least" 7 Member States representatives. Of course, there could be more participants in the group, but the additional people will be called "observers". Note that the main difference is that observers don't get reimbursed for their expenses.
>
> CDMSI members and observers were asked to send expression of interests and suggestions for independent experts (i.e. others than member states representatives) to the Secretariat by April 16. The CDMSI bureau will decide on final selection.
>
> On behalf of EDRI, I expressed our interest to participate as expert, and I made suggestions for other independent experts, taking into account many criteria, such as a willing to include IRP people, as well as gender and country balance (needed to have the suggestions considered) and the fact that budget-wise, it is unlikely that the CoE would bring people based outside of the European continent.
> Again, not being in the small group of experts that will be selected doesn't mean not being able to participate to the work, though without travel funding to attend meetings. As the attached workplan mentions, at-large consultations will also be organized.
>
> Obviously, this work would highly benefit from the work already done by the IRP (charter, 10 IRP, etc.), as well as by other groups on the same topic. I wanted to inform the coalition of this development, so that we can also collectively follow and participate to this new initiative, especially through the consultations that will be organized. Dixie and Matthias will probably make suggestions to follow-up on this.
>
> Best,
> Meryem
>
> --
> Meryem Marzouki - Paris, France
> Email: meryem at marzouki.info
> Lab. LIP6/CNRS/UPMC - www-polytic.lip6.fr IRIS (Imaginons un r?seau 
> Internet solidaire) - www.iris.sgdg.org EDRI (European Digital Rights) 
> - www.edri.org
>
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