FINISHED COPY
NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2014
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
"CONNECTING CONTINENTS FOR ENHANCED
MULTI-STAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE"
03 SEPTEMBER 2014
09:00
COUNCIL OF EUROPE OPEN FORUM:
YOUR INTERNET, OUR AIM:
GUIDE INTERNET USERS TO THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS!
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This is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ROBERT BODLE: Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? All right, let's start. Welcome, thank you all for coming to the Council of Europe Open Forum ‑ Your Internet, Our Aim. My name is Robert Bodle. Cochair of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition.
The goal of this workshop is to explore how to implement the Guide in order to foster Human Rights protection and promotion at the global level. There's three areas in which we'd like to focus. The first is capacity‑building, the second is awareness‑raising and the third is effective remedies.
So, ultimately, the speakers will provide concrete examples of actions to implement the Guide. So let me just speak very quickly about the format, then I'd like to introduce the speakers.
So, the format is open, an open participatory format. There is an opening statement by Jan Kleijssen. The format seeks to solicit suggestions from the audience. We'll go to the audience very quickly in this workshop.
So, our speakers today are Jan Kleijssen, Director Information Society in Action Against Crime. And Rule of Law Council of Europe.
We also have Marco Pancini of Google, Francisco Vera, Tanel Tang, Council of Europe and deputy to permanent representative. Brett Solomon, Lee Hibbard and special guest, Marianne Franklin with Goldsmiths University of London. As well as Rikke Jorgensen.
I'd like to turn to Jan for an opening statement.
>> JAN KLEIJSSEN: Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. A few words to introduce how this Guide came about and what we, at least at the Council of Europe, hope that it can achieve. The document that you have in front of you was adopted by the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers that is bringing together 47 Member States in April of this year.
What it highlights is that for our organisation, Human Rights and fundamental freedoms apply equally offline, online and that the state, state's members, have the duty to protect and promote these rights and freedoms.
I think the Guide comes at a particularly timely, timely moment when there is a lot of evidence that on the part of internet users, trust is eroded, is being eroded, has been eroded. There was, recently, a report by Pew Research that reports there was a vanishing trust as I just mentioned mainly because of reasons given, government and corporate surveillance.
Also, interestingly enough, a study which was brought to my attention a few months ago, by the University of Malta from which it appears that a majority of users don't trust their governments online or to, with regards to online communications, but interestingly enough a far greater percentage doesn't trust companies with their communications. So that is, I think something to reflect upon.
Now, what the Guide aims to do is to help ordinary users to understand better what their rights are, already, existing rights on the internet and how possible interferences with these rights can be, can be remedied.
When you look at the Guide, you'll notice it is written, if you're familiar with Council of Europe legal documents or legal documents from other organisations for that matter, not to mention the terms of service by most internet providers, that it's written very directly and we hope accessible language. You have the right to this and you have the possibility to do that. That is very deliberate. It's actually the first time that our organisation, our Committee of Ministers has adopted such a non‑legalese document, but we hope it'll be somewhat more accessible to the user than I think the average 40 pages of terms and conditions that most service providers put to us on the screen and the question I always ask the audience, is there anyone in the room who has actually read all these 41 pages of the existing terms and reference of service providers? And I would be surprised if there were many hands that went up.
So, we hope that ‑‑ it's encouraging to see that someone has ‑‑ but we really hope the Guide will be more accessible.
We also hope it will be a starting point for a collaborative process between Civil Society, governments and business to ensure that, first of all, national legal frameworks are in accordance with Human Rights, that citizens have a better understanding, users have a better understanding of how they can ensure that these rights are respected and it will also serve as an an encouragement to online platforms to take their corporate, social responsibility serious and something what we would very much of course, like them to do and I'm addressing myself to specific, to represent platforms here, to check their terms of service and whether they treat their customers is in accordance with the Guide.
Something I should mention, the Guide doesn't create new rights. What is in there is already existing casing, based on existing case law. Based on Convention of Human Rights. Member States could already invoke these rights before the national courts, referring to the case law of the Strasburg Court. The document also makes reference to a number of other standards that have been developed by the Council of Europe. It brings together existing rights. It's not inventing or codifying new ones.
Now, what do we aim to achieve? I'll be brief with this, you've already introduced it. As I said, empower the user, map existing remedies, define and we very much hope this meeting here will contribute to that, the best practices approach, to see how state and business actors can effectively implement these rights, and also develop the capacity of all stakeholders to strengthen the protection.
We, of course, need you to find the, to find the solutions to this. The Guide will only be as good as its implementation. If users are not made aware by business, by governments, through Civil Society, what their rights are, even the best or the most accessibly‑drafted document will not do the trick. So, we hope that will happen.
The, after the French Revolution, a wonderful document was, I'll end with this, was drafted. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. It took rather a long time for those principles to be actually, to become Human Rights law and we sincerely hope with our Guide, we don't have to wait 200 years and be a bit quicker in getting some of these rights being effectively respected. Thank you very much and very much look forward to your contributions.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you, Jan Kleijssen. I'd like to make some reparations for an oversight. I forgot to also introduce Maja Rakovic. Thank you for joining us.
Now we're putting this question to the audience. So, how can the Guide be used to foster Human Rights protection and promotion at the global level? Along the lines of capacity‑building, awareness‑raising and effective remedies? I'd like to open it up to the floor now and we can start soliciting or volunteering suggestions. Also identifying problems or challenges.
So, one question I might ask is what are effective remedies for enforcement, just jumping right to effective remedies. The third emphasis.
How could the Guide be used to protect people from government intrusion online such as mass surveillance?
>> MARCO PANCINI: Hello, I think this, for us, is the main topic of discussion. Either way, we'd like to focus, in terms of remedies, I think there are a lot of things we can do in order to raise awareness on existing remedies, first, in, in the community of practitioners. Make sure that judges, law enforcement, ombudsmen know exactly what are the tools that they can put in place in order to enforce user rights, especially in the online environment, which is something new for most of them.
From this point of view, there are a lot of synergies that can be found with existing institutions. I know that the Council of Europe is already working with the FRA, the agency in focusing and protecting, commission agency focusing on protecting fundamental rights.
I think we could also involve ERA, the agency looking after all the literacy programmes and update programme for, for legal practition in Europe, that's something that can be done together with the industry. We'd be more than happy to have a discussion on how to be part of this.
On the other side, we also need to work on raising awareness in the user about their rights, what rights they can enforce towards company, industry and towards government. What are the tools that can be using to enforce these rights? Where to go? And what to do?
And, in order to do that, yesterday we were brainstorming new technologies as an opportunity. On different topics, we, we, for example, we experimented to use hakatuna [phonetic] to members in the community, how to develop tools that can be used by internet users to enforce their rights. That could be an option, but there are plenty of areas that can be done in order to create effective ways to make the user aware of what are their rights. That's a possibility and the industry is more than happy to give a contribution from this company.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you, Marco Pancini. When people speak for the first time, can you introduce yourself? Thank you. Do we have a response to that?
>> BRETT SOLOMON: I want to discuss the remedy section. I think it's an excellent contribution from the Council of Europe. When we talk about remedy, there's judicial and nonjudicial remedy. If you look at the framework, which is also included in the Guide here, I think in paragraph 104. It makes it clear that remedy is part of the private sector as well. It's great to hear from Google. When we think about, for instance, thank you, when we think about how does a user deal with a violation of their rights, you know, this is really what we're talking about when we talk about remedy. It's like, what happens when a person's right online is violated? And how do they have regress or remedy as a result of that breach?
And of course, the relationship that the user has with the platform that they're operating on, the, the platform is the one who also has the responsibility to, of regress as well as set out in Ragi. There should be a complaint mechanism. Where does the user go? Listen my right to freedom of expression was violated or my right to privacy was violated and then it's the responsibility of the platform in order to respect that right, to also provide a remedy as such. So it's great to have a state obligation, but the company also has a responsibility as well.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Just a follow‑up, where does the user go to learn about those remedies?
>> BRETT SOLOMON: Yeah, I mean, I think it's great we've jumped into remedy, but the first point in all of this is that I don't believe the user knows that they have rights online, even offline. Does the citizen know that they have rights? And how do they enforce those rights? If we're moving the rights framework into the digital environment, how does the user actually know they have rights online? And...in much of the work that we're doing with access, we advocate on behalf of the user and try to understand their experience. It's only my perception that users don't know that they have rights online. The majority of users, when their account is deactivated, for instance, or when their privacy is violated through access to their data without a warrant, for example, people don't necessarily know that they have those rights. I think we need to start there.
That's why this Guide is so fantastic, I mean, there's a lot of problems with it as well, in terms of it being able to speak to the user, because even though it is in the Eu language, it is still technical and legal. It sets out to the individual user what their rights are. It's a big question about how do they digest it and understand it and so on. It's all contained here and I pay credit to the Council for putting this together.
Just before I hop off, the other reason why this is so important, this Guide, it's actually been agreed to by 47 Member States. 47 governments have committed to this. If people know about the makeup of the 47 Member States of Europe, it's not just the so‑called democratic states, but a spectrum of countries, so it's excellent as well.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that. We have a response.
>> AUDIENCE: I don't know if it's a response, but I can continue the conversation. I've been involved in the drafting as well, I agree that the Guide is an important document, an important standard‑setting document and along with many of the other Council of Europe declarations and recommendations in this area, it really addresses on a concrete level, the translation between Human Rights and ICT‑related issues to an extent you don't see other organisations dealing with that.
I must say, working with these issues at national and European level, one big challenge is that way too little, people know of the standard‑setting from Council of Europe and time and again, surprised of how little this is out there. For instance, in Denmark at the Danish Internet Governance Forum, even within the circles that are relatively knowledgeable about these issues, so, I think one huge challenge is really to secure ownership at national level, way beyond the usual suspects and to mobilize the various stakeholders at national level to get it out there. To get it out in the organisations and the schools and the various communities that can utilise it. Otherwise, it will just move around in these relatively small circles where we can all say that this is an important document and it's important that, that Human Rights have been translated as they are also in the charter that we discussed yesterday. That's a crucial factor for success. It goes way beyond where it is now. We need ambassadors. Council of Europe can lift that task. We need people at the local level in organisations.
A challenge, in regard to that challenge, it targets different groups. There are supposedly end users where it's relatively accessible, but still, it can be more accessible, still in terms of language and format. And then you have the business sector as another main target group and you have the states, so, there are really different levels of strategy there, also, in terms of how to get these people involved.
Then, another challenge that I experienced is that at the moment, in many circles, people feel that okay, they have these rights in principle, but in, in many of the concrete subject areas, for instance, data protection, there is a complete mistrust. I mean, it's like, okay, even within Europe, we have this relatively detailed data protection regime, but in practice, in practice, does that really matter? Because there are so many examples of violations occurring and the legal and political complexity of the issue is just growing and growing. So there's also a sense of hopelessness in a way, or does it really matter with these standards because it's just a policy game, a surveillance game that's way over our head. So, I think that's another huge challenge of mistrust or even you know, hopelessness with regard to actually having means of enforcing these rights at national level. In the current time, it's also very real and which makes the access to remedy section very crucial but also, illustrates the tremendous challenge in actually giving some practical reality to that.
>> ROBERT BODLE: We have a response now.
>> TANEL TANG: Good morning, I'm from Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe. I wanted to jump into those relevant comments by colleagues before me. I agree, completely that the awareness raising is very important, with respect to this document and what Rikke said about the Council of Europe standards not being known in, in Member States is very much true. Council of Europe works on Human Rights standards in various areas and tries to find concerns of some on different documents. In a way, it's built into the system that not all of the, all of the things that we produce are, people are aware of them. And, of course, we also have to be reminded that the, the project of Council of Europe for one year is 240 million euros, to put this into context.
For example, European Parliament spends nearly as much money moving from Brussels to Strasburg. This sets a limit to our work as well. And of course, the fact that we are an intergovernmental organisation and we have to agree on a text which is acceptable to everyone, and sometimes we have to come up with the language which is maybe not so clear, this helps everybody to be on board. Also, those countries who maybe would have problems with some of the things which are in the document.
I think what we should do, we should have more resources to this, this Guide. We should have training programmes, we should have awareness seminars in different Member States. We should of course, translate the Guide to different Council of Europe languages. The local actors should talk to their governments, should say that this is an important document when we start the next negotiation cycle for the next project and when some of the countries propose that there should be more resources available for this, this part of the organisation, then, there would be as much as, as much as Member States supporting this.
So, I think that this is very important. Now, a second thing, when it comes to remedies, I think it's very important that also, this is localized. We have been discussing different options, how to, how to bring it closer to users. One of the options, for example, is to create some kind of local platform where person can go using internet, perhaps even on application, mobile application and person cannot only know what is the right, what are their rights, but also, which number to call and which kind of institution, which kind of office to call, to actually get help from the government.
So, I think that at this stage, this is what I'd like to say, thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I think the Council of Europe is doing extraordinarily important work. When we need to recall as Brett has reminded us, there are 47 Member States in the Council of Europe. This is almost 1/3 of the United Nations. So, I understand the use of the word global, but practically, my view would be, if you want to understand global, there are three issues here that are being brought up, particularly in terms of resources. First of all, target audience. Secondly, geography. Thirdly, level of implementation. I could briefly mention each of those.
First of all, you have limited resources. We all have limited resources, hence the reason to be very selective in how you use those resources.
I think with 47 Member States, which include governments such as the U.K., the Russian Federation and all sorts of countries, Western Europe who all have very different, clear and passionate views about what constitutes rights online and what constitutes the government's responsibility to their citizens. These views are held very, very strongly. So this makes the work that you have extremely important amongst 47 Member States.
So, to my mind, for this Guide to really start to speak to those, for whom it is directed, it needs to focus and burrow down in those Member States. That, to me, is global, but not in the sense of everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Okay? So that's the geography and the target audience. Could I just make a point about that? Who do you want to communicate to? Primarily, Brett put up the fact that we're all dealing with different audiences. If you're talking to 12‑year‑olds, you wouldn't use this Guide. If you're speaking to lawyers or legal counsels, and university managements, hospital managements, high schools, in regards to access, data retention, more and more issues of the day, if that's your audience, this Guide is absolutely brilliant. Managements, legal counsels, heads of schools. There's this middle ground that I think is being missed out. This is the Charter of Human Rights issues as well. We're trying to be too global. I think 47 Member States has currently got your work cut out for you.
My final point, the level of implementation, if you can work that through as in how you distribute it to your managements in hospitals, schools, universities, libraries, you can use sort of resources you have extremely effectively and this Guide will speak to whom it matters. They're making decisions that affect the ordinary users you want to protect. That's my point at this time.
Global, 47 Member States, good, but that's enough for now.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm from Japan. I want to add one comment. I'm a university teacher and I teach Social Information Studies. And in, in Japan, at university level, they don't put so much emphasis on Human Rights, but I found this document online this year. It gives very broad perspective, especially in Japan. I use this document as material for my lecture and just two weeks ago, I had a lecture to officials on, of local government of Tokyo and I, as, the theme was, internet and Human Rights and I introduced this document to, the official government officials and my lecture was based on this document. This was very informative learning materials, I think, thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that.
>> AUDIENCE: I would just come back on two point and then send back a question to the audience. Under remedies, I think we started really by tackling the most difficult issue and I think Jan was really right in referring, I mean, I hope he's not right referring to the implementation of the 1789 declaration, but it's really the crucial element.
Can we make sure that the principles that are now adopted in this Council of Europe recommendation are applied in practice? At the Fundamental Rights Agency, we showed quite clearly in various fields, discrimination, but also data protection. The question of remedy is really the weak link in the Human Rights implementation. We published earlier this year, a report on data protection remedies and the conclusions were very clear. Low awareness. That has been already mentioned. Lack of NGO support for individuals trying to redress in case of data protection violation. Lack of specialized lawyers, knowing actually the field.
Just to mention a few findings. Now, this, it was also mentioned a problem of, for the individual to understand where to go. That's where we, we started also, a project, it's a pilot project at this stage, but we would like to set up an online tool, it's called Clarity, so that the individual would know where to turn to, to nonjudicial bodies at Member States level in the 28 Member States, in case he or she feels that his or her Human Rights were violated. While judges can play a very important role, it's still a very big hurdle for most of us to go in court of justice and therefore, we really underline the importance of nonjudicial bodies in the field of data protection, of course, the data protection authorities, but in discrimination, there are other fields and the question of ombudsmen was also mentioned.
Now my question would be, out of interest, really, to Marco Pancini because I'd like to understand how Google basically started in, implementation of the May 2014 judgment of the Luxembourg Court. Now it's very clear, you use your search engine, at the bottom, there's a very interesting disclaimer saying if you want to take off this link, follow this one and I just read the, the FAQ very simply, very, very user‑friendly. I was wondering whether, how did you reach this approach? And my question is, of course, linked to the Guide. Why wouldn't you just simply do a hyperlink to the Guide? It encompasses as Human Rights. I think it'd be a simple tool to raise awareness of the user.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that.
>> Thanks, the Guide in the discussion around the implementation of fundamental rights online has guided us in the implementation of the decision of the court. From day one, we took the decision of the court as we should, so, as current guidelines now implement fundamental rights, like in this case, the right to be forgotten or maybe in a more technical way, the right to ask the deletion of the information that are no more relevant in relation to you. There are challenges, we don't, there are a lot of challenges, some ethical challenges, some practical challenges that we are facing and so, it's very important to open up the debate to all the stakeholders and any feedback from this point of view is very important. This is why we've also put in place an Advisory Committee to understand the processes and decisions.
In order to make these processes much clear as we can, we absolutely were in line with the Guide and with the best practice from this point of view. So, that's the action that you want to take.
On the hyperlink, I think we did, we have done something less visible, but in my opinion, more important than the hyperlink. So when we had to draft together with all the Civil Society groups and other stakeholders. The contribution for our brief in the case, we made clear reference to the Guide. What we think, and again, sorry if I repeat myself, the remedy part is, in the Guide, the part that we feel is more important, so...the principle and I'll implement the principle.
On raising awareness, I think we can do much more than simply adding a hyperlink. It's a very good idea, I, I, we discussed this with the team, but I think we can do much more and, and probably, taking the time to sit around the table and thinking how to really put in place some effective tools to raise awareness on the Guide, among the users, could be an important step forward in this direction.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that. Marianne?
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Jan, I have a question about, it's possibly philosophical, legal and political all at once, so feel free to avoid responding. You, you stressed the point, as we all know, that this Guide is on existing rights, namely what, based on case law and existing legal, well, case law, basically.
So, remembering way back at the beginning when the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet was being drafted and debated upon, this was a very important point whether one should avoid talking about new rights because we know that international law, do we really think there are no new rights emerging at all? A Guide like this is talking about what has happened up to today. How do you address the, really changing context in which people are engaging in their everyday life? Would you dare to suggest there might be new rights emerging?
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> JAN KLEIJSSEN: I think it's almost certain there'll be new cases emerging. Many of you have heard of the Delphi Case against Alstonia which was appealed before the chamber. There'll be a new decision coming on that. There are other very important cases relating to freedom of expression and the internet, currently pending. Not to mention surveillance, so yes, which also means that the Guide will, no doubt, have to be updated. That it is a living instrument. We will certainly do our best to ensure that that happens.
So, the answer is yes, there'll be new rights and there'll be, or at least new rights, the definition will be further refined. Totally new rights, perhaps, yes, but certainly will happen, the case law will be further refined and will, will shed more clarity.
Both, by the way, by the court in Strasburg as Google shows, but in Luxembourg, it's developing its case on this. The European Union will adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights. It's an obligation under the listed treaty and therefore, by then, also, the courts, the Luxembourg courts case law will have to be fully refined with regards to Strasburg intervention.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you, I think we have a discussion going. We have a response to that.
>> Thank you, I find that very encouraging. Lawyers often tell me this, because it's case law, this is inherently a cautious endeavor, it's not designed to get ahead of what has already been ruled upon. So this, in fact, leads to another issue that some people might argue to use a metaphor, that the train has already left the station. And that most of us dealing in this area, in terms of remedies, which is based on judicial procedures or complaint procedures, the train has long left the station.
This is something I'm addressing to all of us. How do we expect people to think ahead when they're having to deal with now, this is getting really philosophical, how do we deal with the aspiration and needs we're not sure about yet? By the time you bring out a Guide like this, people are saying, yeah, right, that's so yesterday. That's what I'm hearing from some of my students, for instance. Thank you.
>> TANEL TANG: Yes, a short comment, building upon what Jan said. The mandate, maybe I'm a little democratic and bureaucratic, but the mandate the Council of Europe had in building this Guide was building on existing rights.
This was actually agreed, this way, in order to impede this document at all. I think it was somebody, already before me, said this group, before the 47 Member States includes some countries that have very different understanding from, of Human Rights than maybe some others do.
In order to build the consensus in the room, this was necessary to, and, if it would have been something about new rights, and I completely agree with you, that, the things develop very fast. Then, probably, we would still be discussing this document at this very moment. So just, this political context into this discussion, 47 Member States, very difficult discussion, very difficult negotiations. Much easier to agree in the expert group, much more difficult to agree this in the intergovernmental committee. Thank you.
>> Just to finish. This begs the question of who your target audience is for this specific reason.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you, Tanel, Brett?
>> BRETT SOLOMON: One of the things that we found is that legislators across the world creating laws are impacting laws online. When people in the U.S. context, I remember I went to a protest and somebody had a sign which said, it's no longer okay to make laws about the internet without understanding how the internetworks. That's exactly the situation we're in. It's not only about legislators, it's actually about judges. We started to do some judicial training, I think we should also think about the Council of Europe's legal, the Help Programme, I think it is, which is about training with legal professionals in the European context. We need to educate judges. This is, this is like a handshake between those who uphold rights and legislate them and exercise them. We need to think about it on both sides. It's legislators, judges and perhaps most importantly, it's police. There's a criminalization of freedom of speech taking place all over the world.
And, and police, operating in the non‑digital space, don't understand what those rights are, how they should be enforcing them or indeed, protecting them and I think, again, this Guide, without getting to aspirational about, is there a right, a human right to access the internet itself. We need to get this in the hands of, of judges as they're getting inaugurated or confirmed and policemen, when they're having training and legislators on their opening day. And remind people that again, within the European context, new members of the European Parliament, coming in in the next month or so, in September or October, there's a real opportunity to ensure that those new legislators who are going to be dealing with new legislative frameworks that deal with digital rights from the data protection regulation and beyond, that they read this.
>> TED PALACE: From Simon Fraser community in Canada. I want to congratulate you for putting together a document like this. You've been talking about complications within Europe itself, but to me, looking upon this as someone in a country that hasn't done something like this, you know, I think taking that kind of leadership role is a really important thing.
In terms of what one can do, I mean, I appreciate, very much, the points that are being made, particularly by, by Marianne with respect to how specific it is, how one has to look at, at the specific context that, that you're in. In, in my case, I happen to be in a School of Criminology in Simon Fraser University. So people who come through our programme, some end up being academics, but some also end up being judges, police officers and lawyers. So, to me, looking at it in terms of my own context, part of what you want to do, you want to be educating or at least I see part of my role is educating that next generation of people who are coming through and will be in those kind of positions.
With respect to you know, law, as something in the past, at some level it is, but it's also the case that you build upon what's there and I think the really important thing about this document is that, to the extent that it, it, it talks about what's already there, it, then, becomes the launching point for going beyond that in terms of what are the implications of that? How can you go about asserting it? For me, looking at it as a professor in terms of what one can do, you know, one of the things we do is, is sometimes get involved in, in legal cases, you know, when you're working with community groups and get involved in an advocacy kind of role, you know, I'm, I'm associated with the local Civil Liberties Association as well, who takes on that kind of thing. And I think part of being in criminology is that we understand law not as something that's static and sitting there, but as something that evolves and develops and, and you know, you try to play that role by your involvement with community groups, playing an educational role and so forth. Anyway, thanks.
>> Yes, thank you, maybe to come back to the question of Human Rights, I fail to understand why we'd concentrate human resources now, in trying to draft new rights. I think we mentioned already the Delphi case several times based on a draft of text in 1950. There'll be a solution to the Delphi case. I really think the Council of Europe is right in saying, let's focus on awareness‑raising, maybe add new case law, explaining it better, do whatever you want, but leave the rights as they are. People will use them, I think, interpret them, in the specific context of a case. There's really, I think, no need to start working on now already drafting, updating the Guide and as it was said, it will, any way be possible to adopt a new recommendation. These are the new rights we want to add to the old‑fashioned Guide you adopted last year. That's out of question.
So, I think really, what's important is focus on implementation and awareness‑raising. This is really the most important aspect.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I take your point, Mario, it's just to clarify. It's more to do with target audience, if you're trying to reach a certain generation, this is not right document, precisely for the recommendations you outlined. I take your point, but was I not suggesting the Council of Europe has made itself redundant with this document. Quite the opposite. It's about target audience.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm a fellow for Center of Technology and Society for Europe. I just want to make a point regarding the need, in order for this practically respected platforms. I commend the work done by the Council of Europe with this Guide. It gives some practical directions on how to implement Human Rights. It's more specific what Human Rights treaties provide in the provisions, however, it still retains a certain level of generality, because, indeed, the mandate of the Council of Europe is limited. It cannot go beyond the caseload. It often, this Guide refers to what the case law says. However, users are not probably going to look themselves into the caseloads. So, it's important, I think that someone does this effort of, you know, reviewing the extent to which online platforms are, in their terms of service, complying with what the case law is saying.
So, just wanted to say, at CTS, we are using the Guide of the Council of Europe to exploit the directions that the Council of Europe has given and review the terms of service of a number of online platforms. We hope by the end of the calendar year, to come out with a website where users would be able to cross‑check the extent to which the platforms are complying with their rights, the focus of this Guide. And this, to some extent, resembles the work that is being done by terms of service, an interesting initiative. That's more focused on consumer protection and this would be more trying to really implement the rights that are at the center of this Guide.
So, mainly, due process, privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association. And effective remedy.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that.
>> The involvement of existing rights, it's important to remember that the, the Guide, so to speak, consists of three elements. There's the commitment from states, there's the Guide itself, and the experimental report.
And actually, I think the explanatory report, we haven't talked a lot about yet in this process, but I think it's an important document. Because it really elaborates and unfolds the discussions that are behind each of the rather short rights in the Guide and at least, in some of the discussions I've had with Human Rights people, labor organisations, consumer organisations in Denmark, they're really interested in the explanatory report, because it provides that broadness and that depth that can be used to inform discussions about where a certain line is being drawn at the moment and where case law might be moving.
So, so also for teaching, for educational purposes, I think the explanatory report is an important document and I agree with the previous suggestion that focus should really be on securing that that document is regularly updated as new case law evolves. That's really the basis for the shorter text we have in the Guide.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that. Other questions or responses? Yes?
>> AUDIENCE: I work for the Council of Europe, but in Ukraine for EU‑funded project on Internet Governance, media and data protection. I would like to say that the Council of Europe is trying, exactly to instill the life of, of these standards in national contexts, in Ukraine. There is a series of activities that are foreseen for the end of September and beginning of October. Including the national IGF on the 3rd October. In which we'll use the opportunity to raise awareness on the Guide, but we have translated the Guide into Ukrainian. We have representation from Ukraine at this event, people are representing both state institutions, society academia and the private sector. We're not financing participants, but they're here and we'll have an opportunity, tomorrow, from 1:00 to 2:00, to discuss precisely how to apply international context of Ukraine. These rights, effective remedies and also to build the pray, more adapted programme for the national IGF on the 3rd of October. We have already contacted, and many are here, will be interested and you will be interested by this discussion, we'll provide further details. It'll be, actually in the main building and we hope that it will be exactly an opportunity to discuss very practical matters related to a specific national context, thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that. The floor is open.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm from Russia. Just briefly, it is, it's great work done. A great review of this document, it is brought here on Internet Governance Forum since the Human Rights. I believe it's the key point of view to analyze the Internet Governance. And it is mainly between multistakeholders and so, in the document, the balance between Human Rights and daily limitations, I mean, there's been civility, protection of other people and rights are reflected.
I would say this is place for improvement, for example, the culture in which diversity should be stressed more, but we fully support this approach, thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that. Rikke, response?
>> RIKKE JORGENSEN: Yes, it's not actually a response to that, but I was wondering, since we have the two could he chairs from the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition here, which is another important document that the Guide was highly inspired by, in terms of translating Human Rights to an internet context, how can we, how can we reinforce, so to say that, the mutual benefit or having the two documents that sort of move around to different circles. Reinforce the message of each other or collaborate more? Any thoughts or reflections on that? Could be you, could be Council of Europe.
>> Thank you, Rikke, I think my belief is that synergy is strength and competition is unfortunate when it undermines projects. Sister projects are distinct, that's a strength. I don't think we can talk about them synonymously. That is very important to me from the point of view of what the Guide is doing. Obviously it's important to me and Robert and the Coalition from the point of view of what the Coalition is doing.
There's a larger point. A lot of talk, particularly leading up to there being so many principles, declarations, intentions out there, as if there's like a mushrooming of declarations on Human Rights and that we should not have so many, we should actually all combine under one umbrella.
I think there are pros and cons for that, I think the context of the Guide, for the Council of Europe is an extremely important context and I think that's a strength. The charge of Human Rights and principles is coming out at a much more global and true aspirational level, Mario, so it is actually uttering things that perhaps existing law wouldn't want to address quite yet and it wouldn't lead to agreement.
So, I think they are companion projects and I would like to urge the room, if it's possible, as we all know each other and have worked together, I'd like to move forward, if possible, which Robert will be taking forward when I step down. That we look at ways to create the synergy and, and move from there, because of the great big gap in knowledge and awareness on any level, global, regional, and within our own families, by the way.
So, to me, let's work together, that's how I see it and I think there are practical ways we can implement that right now, over coffee, thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> BRETT SOLOMON: Bret here from ACCESS. Wanted to ask the Russian representative who just left, unfortunately. I think the challenge is, how do you make this document live? How do you make it real? I think, perhaps, the Russian representative is no longer here, but representatives of states that are in the room. You know, if we look at the point about freedom of expression, it says, you have the right to secrecy of imparting information without interference and regardless of frontiers. This means you have the right to express yourself, online, and to access information and the opinions and expressions of others. This includes political speech. Views on religion, opinions and expressions that are favorably received or regarded as inoffensive.
If you go to the remedy section, it says you have a right to effective remedy when your fundamental rights are restricted or violated. My question is, how do you make this live in the sense that a person's right to freedom of expression is violated and that person has the right to an effective remedy. My question is to them.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> LUCA BELLI: I wanted to talk about implementing Human Rights and create concrete solution to implement them. On Thursday, there'll be the first meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility that aims at developing concrete model, contractual provisions that can be inserted into terms of service of online platform, to stimulate platform responsibility, to protect Human Rights. Because, as Brett was mentioning before, the Iraqi framework, operated by the United Nations and also the principles based on Iraqi framework states that state have the duty to respect Human Rights, corporation have the responsibility to protect and respect Human Rights. And, effective remedies have to be available for users and for citizens in general.
So...being on the right platform, corporations, they do have a responsibility to respect Human Rights and so, the aim of this coalition is to merge both the, the purpose of the, of the Iraqi framework and the Guide to develop model contractual provisions. Jan will also do a keynote on Thursday to this initiative. And also recommend a keynote and there'll be an open dialogue to try to put together a roadmap for this coalition.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Terrific, thank you. Joy?
>> JOY FROM APC: Apologies for arriving late this morning. I see a slightly different point. Not really related to the one just made. It sort of relates more to reflecting where we are in the discussions on the IGF Human Rights. It's just interesting to reflect on that in a multistakeholder environment and I think about the first IGF I came to in 2010 in Lithuania. The coalition discussions were happening, freedom of expression was there. We didn't have anything like this kind of document from state, from an organisation like the Council of Europe at that time. We were still struggling as stakeholders to articulate what we thought Human Rights meant in terms of online application and freedom of expression and so on.
So...I think, I think it's great to see this initiative from the Council of Europe. I think it's really important to have this milestone where we have states or an organisation that's you know, of states attempting to articulate what Human Rights means online, in this way. I think it's new, I think it's innovative. I think we can critique it in terms of target audiences and I think the points that others have made are quite valid.
But, I suppose my challenge is, it'd be great to see other states attempt this in a similar way and to give expression whether it's in their regions, subregional ways or so that we can get that discussion happening among states who are the primary duty‑bearers and the Human Rights regime.
I think this is something that, at the IGF, we can offer back to Human Rights bodies and Human Rights mechanisms and we should think about, in terms of the sorts of quality parts the IGF is producing and I think these are the kinds of practical outcomes from the IGF that should be documented and highlighted when we're, and we should remember them when we think this is a talk fest and it doesn't result in this. It does. These are concrete things that are practical and useful.
And, just on that note, we're also, there is a round table on Friday morning, because the Human Rights Council and the United Nations is meeting next Friday to talk about the right to privacy in the digital age. This would be helpful input about that Human Rights Council panel.
Also, if people have other inputs they think the IGF should make based on these Human Rights discussions, to share those at the round table on Friday morning. Thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm from Ukraine and I'm representing Academic Institution and Civil Society. I want to say, not about for example, freedom of expression or access to the information, it's more important for, for us in Ukraine, now, to think about internet and about assemblies, participation, et cetera, et cetera. So, addressing the invitation to join this process of making more and more effective these documents, this Guide, I'd propose to maybe add or to make more effective, the provisions of these points, about assemblies, association and participation, because, for example, in Ukraine, now we are thinking and working at implementing e‑democracy instruments. For us, public dialect is very important. Public dialect between society and authorities and that's why, as for me, I think that it's, it's important not only to provide certain provisions about the right of certain person, to take active part in different, making certain decisions.
It's even more important for us for stronger provisions of applications about the country to provide this variety of electronic instruments via internet. That's why, perhaps, it's possible to make these provisions, so to say, broader or more, more informative and more obligative for the country.
The sect point is about the division of responsibility between the authors of certain messages in, in internet forums et cetera. And those who have certain administrative responsibility for such platforms. It's why we need such a more clear recommendations from the international documents. How we can really implement this in our legislation, where is the border of responsibility? The exact and clear division of responsibility, otherwise, we still have a lot of suit cases and decisions of the court where they implement norms differently. We need the help of this Guide to make it more and more clear. Thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you.
>> FRANCISCO VERA: Good morning. I work at NGO, I'm from Chile. First thing, before starting, I think it's hugely important that these Human Rights data discussions can be conducted through multiple levels. I mean, there's a saying in Chile that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. So, it's important that we can have the idea, notion that we can work parallelly on strengthening our Human Rights system and see if there's a need to create new ones, but also start working on the implementation level, especially on the remedies level, which I think is like better outcome or things we can take from this report is the emphasis that is placed on having this broad view of enforcement.
Not only the judicial case, but also the ability to go to administrative body or to enhance the ability of the citizens to, or people, to be able to gain remedy, not only through court cases or hiring lawyers.
So, specifically from an outer Europe perspective, in Latin America, I hear from people using the Guide and elsewhere, these kind of documents play a really strong role as a soft law instrument. There are many countries in Latin America that are enforcing new degradation laws with a purpose to actually gain access to European Union or the European space, but also to gain or take the data protection standards.
And that's where the challenge is, also, like, how can we use this document and move forward? Our local discussions, maybe we're not intended audience for this document, but also, there's value in it.
Also, in terms of how can we move forward in terms of advocacy work with these documents. First, there's the need to disseminate or analyze, try to work terms of service with the document, but also there's a challenge, not only for the Council of Europe, but for everybody to start working and communicate in the content that is effective. If you look at the document, it's a booklet with font that is like eight point. If you're not using glasses, you won't be able to see. How can we move that in terms of using better language, intelligent design, and not only Council of Europe work, but also Civil Society, university, private sector work, to simplify the content, to interpret the content and carry it forward. It's the work of the Civil Society, many times, to spread this, gain more awareness on these principles.
Finally, sometimes, gaining this knowledge of people of the rights can also lead us to social change. When people realize there are limits on the current rights or their Human Rights settings, not perfect as it happens everywhere. There's no perfect Human Rights document. There's also moral support when you're aiming for change. This is a process that keeps feeding itself, and we are looking forward to the virtual circle. Thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you, Francisco. Rikke?
>> RIKKE JORGENSEN: Yes, I have a question to Council of Europe. With regard to the national implementation and the state commitment, now transparency reporting is such a used notion these days, do you have any thoughts on how to follow the national, how to follow or maybe even manage the national implementation of the Guide, say perhaps even, ask for some state reporting on progress in terms of, of the level of implementation and various national levels.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you, Media Information Society of the Council of Europe. Integral committees where representatives of all 47 Member States are present as well as a number of observers from Civil Society and private sectors. And I'll use this name for the committee because it's shorter. Has been involved in, in supervising the preparation of the Guide and will be very much involved in, in follow‑up of the implementation of the Guide.
One of the reasons I'm here is to report back to the government representatives on what the conclusions and suggestions and ideas are. And going back to the suggestions that have been raised so far, I do agree that local context, implementation is very important because we, we speak globally, but we act locally. Unless it's on the ground, unless we see concrete examples of implementation, it's not a living thing, it's just an abstraction. So, we'll try to work more on that. It's a work in progress, it cannot be done overnight, but, as a first step, we're working together with the secretariat who is, of course, leading the work on developing this first online platform which is this, at this point, it's, it's information‑based, but the idea was within the CDSI, all right, how to create national remedies and reports, it'll be useful also to have inputs from other stakeholders from the national context to be included in this website.
My view is that it has to be very, and I would agree with your approach, it has to be varied by target group. It has to have, to be, in a way, simple, but at the same time, to have layers. So whatever layer you, whatever stakeholder you, whatever target group you are, you can find it, and one of the proposals, one of my proposals during CDSI would be to provide as much information as possible on the national remedies and also to other stakeholders and it'll be important to have concrete examples, like, and also, the importance of having, I don't know if it's feasible and I don't know how soon it's feasible, but to have maybe, sort of ROBERT BODLEs for Q&A to start to try to answer and reply to some concrete questions of citizens and users from Member States, how they can address, in their national context, certain issues that they, that they are facing, which are, which concerns their Human Rights.
I think it also, I would also agree on the importance of awareness‑raising, which has been stressed a number of times here. Perhaps we could ask for more help from traditional media. Maybe if the Guide would get attention, as for instance, Ice Bucket Challenge or some of these new trends that are happening now in the world, perhaps it would have a greater impact overnight.
I would also, I believe also that it's important to, not to forget children. They are the ones that grow up with technology. It's important that while growing up with technology, they also grow up with a concept of importance of Human Rights perspectives, so that Human Rights perspectives becomes a default in sort of technology use. It's people from the outside, when they use as babies, iPads and iPhones, they start to understand how it works. Starting with awareness raising from this age, I think it can work.
As regards to questions about policy being, backing up the technology codevelopment, I would say that it is not new, unfortunately it has been the case when the technology moved slower than now. So, I guess that the answer is, in one of the ways, the committee, the Steering Committee is trying to work this, is to also focus on principles. A lot, because many, in many cases there, are actually old, all the breaches just in new suits. So when you have, you know, you might have some new things that might look sometimes as new rights, but when maybe sometimes when you look back, when you look behind the context, you see there are actually, they existed before in history, but they were in different costumes.
So, you know, terms like censorship, terms like surveillance, it didn't exist on this level in this way, but it did exist. So, I guess, working on principles could be one of the ways to address these challenges and just not to take too long, I'd just like to draw attention to our current work which is on internet freedom, internet freedom recommendation, so developing a concept of freedoms, this might be one of the opportunities for, for valuable inputs from stakeholders as regards to new rights and new contexts, thank you.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you, Maja. We're nearing the end of our session. I'd like to push forward another two or three minutes and sum up if I may. We have one more comment and I'd like to sum up.
>> It's very short. I think somebody should react on the question tabled by Brett. I don't want to take the position of Russian government and answer what they would do in protecting the freedom of expression, but...there are some ideas floating. We could talk together in the Council of Europe, and of course, one option and really thinking out of the box is to introduce some kind of monitoring mechanism. And of course when I say this, I should immediately add that adding another layer of monitoring in the Council of Europe that already does a lot of monitoring may be problematic. I think this is one way to look at how Member States implement this Guide. At the beginning, when we started the discussion, we said the citizens in our Member States often don't know about the Council of Europe status and one of the reasons is that actually, when we agreed to the document, to put this document on the shelf and we do not hold the countries responsible, we do not hold countries accountable to that.
So, one of the ways is, out of this, is of course, some kind of monitoring. Whether formal way or whether through the Intergovernmental Committee and the informal way, it's just an idea.
>> ROBERT BODLE: Thank you for that. Okay, and to sum up, we had a challenging, terrific, workshop, we have concrete outcomes. We've addressed challenges and we've addressed concrete suggestions.
In terms of challenges, at the level of capacity‑building, we have challenges of education, challenges of lack of specialized knowledge among users, judges, private industry.
We have challenges and outreach, challenges in targeting geography and various levels of implementation. And the need to restore trust. And a cross‑cutting challenge is lack of resources.
In terms of effective remedies, some challenges are perhaps, the Guide is to aspirational, perhaps reality is out‑pacing user protection.
In terms of concrete suggestions, in capacity‑building, we can train and educate legislatures and judges and users. In terms of outreach, we could have local ambassadors, we can continue to address online rights at the local level. We can have awareness seminars. We can work on translations of the Guide with respect to different dialects and different languages.
We could utilise technical applications and instruments such as perhaps, hotlines and be more selective about utilising resources by identifying target audiences and targeting them where they are at at the level of content, in terms of messaging and at the level of distribution. And identifying the audience from children, middle management, all the way up to legislatures.
Finally, in effective remedies, oh ‑‑ I'm sorry, and one more means of concrete suggestion is articulate limitations. I thought that was terrific. As a means for social change.
In terms of effective remedies, utilising a monitoring mechanism to hold countries to account. Utilising traditional means of redress as Brett mentioned, as well as non‑traditional means of redress.
Perhaps, aligning terms of service agreements with the Guide. Enforcing the rule of law, utilising greater synergy among stakeholders, as well as synergy within stakeholders and produce quality outcomes from within the IGF.
Thank you, everyone.
[Break].
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This s the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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