[IRPCoalition] Call for elections and nominations coming soon: Thank you for 2020!

[info at irpcharter.org]

Dear all,

I hope this email finds you well and ready for the long update below ;) It was great to see so many of you at the virtual IGF last month! The IRPC contribution to the IGF was again very strong this year and if you missed any of our sessions, they are now available in the IRPC website <https://internetrightsandprinciples.org/>.

It is almost time for the Steering Committee elections, but before we kick off the call for nominations, I would like to share here my warmest thanks to everyone in this list who contributed so positively to our work and in particular to the SC members June, Marianne, Mohamed and Rigobert who are about to end their 2-year mandates and to the members carrying on for another year: Michael and Sahaj. It has been a very eventful year, with many of us struggling to cope with the effects of the outbreak of the pandemic in our personal lives and its impacts in our physical and mental health, but the commitment and enthusiasm of this group has not been hindered by the hardship of the current times, quite the contrary! I really appreciate each single contribution, which has been so crucial to advance the work of the Charter and of this Coalition. 

This year, drawing on Article 4 of the Charter: The Right to Development Through the Internet, we helped opening up new conversations on human rights and the link to the environmental sustainability of Internet Governance at EuroDIG 2020 and at the virtual IGF - the 360º approach as coined by Ilias Iakovidis, one of the speakers at our annual meeting. We also reflected on the effects of the pandemic and the use of emerging technologies on the full realisation on human rights online (more to follow up on this important topic!). We have fostered partnerships with members of different stakeholder groups, including the APC and sister Dynamic Coalitions such as the DC on Core Internet Values and the Youth Coalition Internet Governance, and we have been active in many different initiatives, including in our role as Council of Europe CDMSI observers. On the latter, we have attended the 18th Meeting of the CDMSI last 24th and 25th November  (here is the abridged report <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Frm.coe.int%2F18th-meeting-of-cdmsi-abridged-meeting-report-2776-5897-2418-1-2765-17%2F1680a0953e&data=04%7C01%7Cm.i.franklin%40gold.ac.uk%7C9cfb68f8ae5841cbb6be08d897b4f6a9%7C0d431f3f20c1461c958a46b29d4e021b%7C0%7C0%7C637426150789253324%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=w%2FvIB%2BBj9ixUy5XlfmldQnXj1fgb2mojbEMwz1UQuAg%3D&reserved=0> ) and it was very interesting to follow the work of the Council of Europe in areas that overlap with our activities through the Charter. 

Next year we will be celebrating 10 years of the IRPC Charter: a great milestone for this Coalition! The 10th anniversary should be an opportunity to push forward the Charter and the work of the IRPC. Covid-19 has highlighted how crucial the work of human rights defenders is to ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms apply online as offline, as unfortunately almost all the rights and principles of the IRPC Charter have been negatively impacted following the outbreak. I believe that a decade later the Charter is ever more relevant and that we should all proudly look back and be inspired by the IRPC achievements in its commitment to making human rights work for the online environment to carry on the (still) long path ahead. 

A few updates below:

EuroDIG 2021
The EuroDIG will take place in Trieste In June 2021 and the call for issues has been extended! The deadline is now tomorrow 11th December. Still time to submit <https://www.eurodig.org/get-involved/planning-process/#tab-call-for-issues> that great proposal that you had drafted, if you missed the earlier deadline!
Last June the IRPC co-organised Plenary 4 on Internet Governance and environmental sustainability and we are now active part of the working group committed to taking this issue forward. Everyone is welcome to join the working group by signing up to the GreemingIG mailing list here <https://eurodigwiki.org/wiki/Greening_Internet_governance_%E2%80%93_Environmental_sustainability_and_digital_transformation_%E2%80%93_2020/2021>

IRPC Charter and 10 translations and booklets.
Some great news to share! 
We are now preparing the Italian translation of the Charter to be printed in booklet format. A very warm thank you to Edoardo Celeste and his team that included students of the universities of Padua and Salerno.
The 10 Principles have also been translated into Nepali and Georgian and this is thanks to the incredible work of Shreedeep Rayamajhi and Giorgi Aladashvili.
A big  thank you too to the very kind offer from Leandro Navarro to translate the Charter into Catalan and to Giorgi Aladashvili, who is working on the Georgian translation of the Charter.

Website updates
Since March the IRPC website has been hosted by a green hosting company - Greenhost- and the website was also redesigned to lower our online carbon footprint. There are still some updates needed: please stand by while I try to find a spare few hours to dedicate to the website's development.

Please do share your thoughts and feedback on our work in 2020. Recommendations for improvements or future IRPC activities that you would like to suggest are most welcome.


Very best wishes,
Minda

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