FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES ‑ ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OCTOBER 24, 2013
9:00 A.M.
WORKSHOP 66
TOWARDS THE IRP CHARTER 2.0: HUMAN RIGHTS AND PRINCIPLES FOR THE INTERNET IN PRACTICE
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication access realtime translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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>> Hello. It's on. You take the others.
>> Okay.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: We are just going to pass a sheet around. If you don't mind, your name and email. If you don't wish to, that's fine. Okay. Shall we start?
Shall we start? It's quarter past 1, nearly quarter past 9:00. I think we need to be a little bit practical. I would like to welcome you to the human rights and principles. This is the IRP 2.0 and we hope this is less than a normal boring business meeting than something to talk about a very concrete output which is the charter of human rights and principles. I brought 100 copies. I have 100 more copies back in the office. My luggage only allow me to bring that many but they have gone like hot cakes. There are two copies left, but there are more later.
On the sheet, if you wish to be enter a copy ‑‑ I don't know how I will do it postage‑wise, and I think there will be a second print run by the look of it. I do have only two here. Really? Okay. Could you just leave it standing there for the meantime so people can see?
There are a couple more plugs I will make as well. I have some apologies. Eduardo Bertoni cannot make it, Rikke, Jorgensen, it's 1:00 in the morning in Denmark, and she has given her apologies but she looks and Jac sm Kee. And Malcolm is actually on his way.
There are some people in the room who may not be aware of how we got to this point. I'm not going to tell you. In the booklet ‑‑ it's a terrible habit of academics but in this case, I have to, because of time. But in a brief, unacademic introduction, you will find where we came from to get here. And here was already public in 2011. What we have done is actually put this all in one book, which has proved extremely successful. We crowd sourced the booklet and we are nearly there. We have less than 150 American dollars to catch. I've got some cash in any purse if you want to give me cash, I will make a payment on behalf of about six people already. So if you want to give me $5, $10, please. It's quite exciting. We raised about $1,100, $1,200 American dollars to fund the design, which is a professional design that's now available for us to use, and, of course the printing and all the overheads that are involved.
This book has not only been snapped up, I'm talking about the booklet form at the moment because it's our big output but also translations are also underway. We have a Finnish translation already underway. We have a Spanish translation already underway. We have an Arabic translation almost, almost underway because it's just been promised. And we have hopefully a Portuguese version and so on and so forth.
The point about the translations is this charter booklet puts together two key documents from the coalition. The coalition is what the IGF calls a Dynamic Coalition. It's very much an animal of the IGF and this charter was actually collabo‑written. And this is true. I have been following this process since it began in 2008 and it is a small, modest but actually turning out to be quite a major success of the idea that people from different stakeholder groups can actually work together as individuals and as representatives of their organisations.
And that process in itself was an interesting story. The outcome was that an expert group finally got together to draft this beautifully written document and that's the translations we are working on now because the main document, the main charter, which is modeled on the universal declaration of human rights and other major UN covenants such as the rights of children, the rights of people with disability, we needed people with legal expertise and human rights knowledge to write ‑‑ help us draft the final document. Those of us in the first drafts showed our ignorance, rather than our skills. So they knocked it into shape, and we have this lovely 22 or 21 section document.
The smaller document, which is being used for outreach, education, I used it in class for different levels of students. I know people have used it for other things. It's what we call the ten punchy principles and that's in the beginning of the booklet. The ten punchy principles are already translated into 22 languages. Already 22 languages. So if there are any languages not covered, we have just hit the Arabic one spruced up. They are much shorter. They are very short. They are easier to translate.
This larger translation exercise has emerged. People see that this is a concrete outcome.
We will talk about the content today, of course. So we have also had in two workshops, we co‑convened two workshops, workshop 99 was first one with the Association of Progressive Communications, which everybody knows as APC. APC, not ABC.
And that was extremely well. That was charting the charter. That is concentrating on this document, and the other rights, charters, manifestos and there we got some very concrete suggestions from government officials. We got a very critical reading from our Microsoft representative. He discovered two typos. I had only discovered one. He discovered the other one. He had some points to make which I think was worth hearing.
Our second workshop, I believe was 276, I haven't got that number wrong, which was rights for disadvantaged groups and that was an extremely helpful workshop because Section 8 ‑‑ is it? Section 8? Oh, I forget. We have a section for those with disabilities building on the convention for the rights for persons with disabilities; is that right? Which is also a major UN outcome. You can see already that the charter gives people something to hang on to, something to look at, something to respond to we all like responding to concrete stuff and that's what this project has been.
Strangely enough, the assumption that if it stayed digital it would be more effective has proved erroneous. Even students like the look of a book. So there we go. A lesson to us all.
Now, the concrete outcomes, which is what we concentrate on today, we had, of course, a very close relationship with the Special Rapporteur On Freedom of Expression, Frank LaRue from the beginning. This version 1.1 that is now in the booklet was, in fact, presented to Frank LaRue in Stockholm in 2011 and at that point, as all of us know, he was writing his report, his landmark report that human rights, particularly freedom of expression also exist in the online sphere and we also know in 2012, the UN Human Rights Council endorsed this premise. And this is extremely important for us to have this time of synergy with such an important body and Frank LaRue in person was there. My predecessor, Lisa Horner, and Dixie Horton were working with Frank LaRue at that time. So we can take pride was a coalition from the IGF that we were there at the beginning with this important UN step to recognize existing rights.
Our second close working relationship with been with the Council of Europe and the Council of Europe took a look at the charter work, got very involved and noticed many existing rights out there, particularly in the European situation, that nobody knows about.
Once we started to show, we may be hacking the universal declaration of human rights, we are adapting it and translating it for specific online scenarios some of which are unfolding before our very eyes. The Council of Europe decided this was not the time to flesh out the charter which is very proud and generate a guide. They called it then a compendium but that word has been dropped. It's now a guide on rights for internet users and it is being released tomorrow. So I would like to advertise, because they have a very, very close relationship with us. As well, the guide is being released tomorrow at 11:00, I believe, Miriam.
I have one version here. Please let me keep that because that's my hard copy, but I have some flyers here. Okay? So that's very exciting because the expert group that drafted the parter are part of the expert group that helped to draft the guide and the council of Europe. So UNHCR, Council of Europe.
And my excitement today for the transcript, last night the Hivos Internet Governance, for the Middle East region said they are going to be actively and publicly endorsing the human rights and principles for the Internet in a region where we know, of course, this is unchartered territory, perhaps for some governments. So to have them endorse this, to take the charter on and they are behind the Arabic translation. So we are getting on with that. I think it's extremely exciting.
So Hanane Boujemi, who could not be here, has made that clear.
The last point is we still have our fund‑raiser open on Razu. If you go to www.Internetrightsandprinciples.com and just scroll down, you will see the charter PDF document. And click on our fund‑raiser, we are really, really so, so close. $5 is fine or give me cash. I won't run away to a warm climate. I'm already there.
(Laughter).
Excuse me, dot org. It just shows you how hard the default position is to get rid of. Dot org. Thank you very much. So just scroll down a little bit.
Okay. So actually, the aim today, five minutes because I want to give the Mike to Stuart, if he's ready, since he has to go. This is an open mic session. It's not going to be a panel. There are two points, we have had a lot of feedback on the content, the really nitty‑gritty of the charter. We would like to have a little crowd of people who have read the charter or who have started to notice it, how they think it can help and particularly how it is already helping in their work, whether it's in a particular ministry, whether it's on the ground with an NGO or whether they are going to take it back to their schools. It's turning out to be an extremely important educational tool. I was lecturing about five‑minute drop in spot on lecture to international relation students in Wales, which is in England ‑‑ in the UK, not England. I would like to pass the microphone to the room. I have my reporter here Robert here. I'm not sure how many notes I can take.
First feedback on the charter, the project first. And then next steps. I have a long list that people have been coming to me with fabulous ideas. We will keep it open. We are not going to judge any of the suggestions and say, no, that won't work. No, we don't like it. We just want to hear what you have to say.
And then we'll move slightly to a little bit of business‑y stuff. We may be finished by 10:00. Let's see how the room. Is who wants to go first of anybody?
For the record please identify yourself.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you, so time Stuart Hamilton from IFLA and I'm here in my capacity as one of the conveners of Dynamic Coalition on public access through libraries and we were very happy yesterday to co‑facilitate and moderate the workshop 276 on access with disadvantaged groups, Mary Ann said went very well and I can see panelists in the room.
I don't long comments, the Dynamic Coalition is fairly supportive of the charter. IFLA itself developed the Internet manifesto in 2002, which has been a guiding document for the library profession over the last decade, but as you can imagine, a document written about Internet principles in 2002 now seems rather dated and I'm pleased to say that we will be updating that during 2014 and the charter is going to prove a very useful document to help us do that.
So I will be happy to feed back to the group over the course of the next year as to how that's going and mean while, we have already gone to promote the charter within library community and I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion on it. Just short remarks to let you know that the Dynamic Coalition of libraries is fully supportive of all the work going on here. Thank you.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much, Stewart. So we look forward to getting particularly the concrete feedback as this charter goes to organisations. It's extremely important. So thank you very much. Stuart now has to leave us. So thanks.
Who is next? Particularly just ideas if nothing else. Dixie? Eating your breakfast. Did you bring your coffee? Oh, you did too. Oh, clever.
>> PARTICIPANT: Hello, my name is Dixie Hawtin and I work for Global Partners Digital in the UK and I have been an active participant in the IRP since I joined this field about four years ago. One of the ways that the IRP charter is being used at the moment is that the Council of Europe, who were very active, actually, they were on the steering committee as well, of the IRP during the time when the last version and the one before that, I think, were being put together.
And one of the ways that it's being taken forward is that the Council of Europe has put to go a working group to make a guide for ‑‑ that's directed at Internet users to explain to them in a kind of simple way, what their rights mean online and what kind of remedies might be available to them. And that's something that came very, very much out of the IRP charter work. In fact, on the working group, because it's Council of Europe, there are seven governmental representatives and then there's six independent experts, among those of six, three of them were human rights experts that worked on our charter. One of them was a cochair and one of the government ‑‑ actually two of the government representatives had also been involved in the charter as well.
So the two initiatives are really, really linked and that's one of the ‑‑ when we were putting the charter together, one of the big discussions we often had was whether this was something that we wanted to look at enforcement somehow or was it more of a kind of ‑‑ kind of debate aid, trying to push understandings forward. And I think the charter, as it is there, is more of a debate aid but there are ways that you can take that and try and move more towards enforcement and that's what's happening at the Council of Europe at the moment. I would like to pass on to Marianne. And we are have an open forum about that guide tomorrow. If you want to feed in that, it's still in draft form.
(Off microphone comments).
>> PARTICIPANT: Hi, I'm Mike Godwin with Internews and I wanted to make a couple of observations about ‑‑ I'm Mike Godwin, with Internews we do public policy development with NGOs around the world. One of the things I want to note at the outset is that in my experience in this ‑‑ in this field of international cyber law, one of the ironies is that ‑‑ has been that many nations around the world have adopted cybercrime statutes in order to comply as signatories to the Budapest convention, the council of Europe treaty, passing legislation that I think most people in open societies would regard as repressive and undermining human rights.
So I think it's very helpful that the Council of Europe is now playing a more positive influence. I don't think that this was an intention. This was the intention of the Council of Europe to lead to repressive legislation and signatory countries but the fact is, it has done so.
My own work with Internews and our partners has led me to believe that positive right statements that framing of human rights and positive affirmative context as a framework for all cyber law related initiatives is often a very productive strategy even in countries that have either no tradition of Internet law, public policy advocacy or in countries that for whatever reason have found themselves stalled or paralyzed in their ‑‑ in their work in progressing individual rights, and so ‑‑ so I'm actually working on a paper that may eventually be published that will discuss how rights, instruments can be used to get ‑‑ to essentially restart human rights dialogues within countries.
And I think that what an optimum outcome may be, may be for charters like this one, and for positive framings, affirmative framings of protection of individual human rights, including, of course, freedom of expression and privacy will lead ultimately to implementing human rights instruments within national law frameworks, which may, in fact, be customized or bespoke for particular countries or cultures but nevertheless will frame dialogue positively, policy positively going forward.
So I hope that that is one of the aims of this and I look forward to seeing how the ‑‑ this document can be used to promote constructive dialogue within nations as our partners and other NGOs are working on a national level.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much. I think the stress on the positive framework and hopefully having good law made, not bad law, because that's of course ‑‑ so Miriam next and then ‑‑ first Miriam because she's in the queue.
>> Thank you, I'm Miriam Mazuki. I'm based in Paris, but I have an active hat as a part of the Digital Rights Association. I wanted to give more details about the process in writing the guide but first I will take on what Mike just said because we know that ‑‑ we know this issue of the cybercrime convention and how the Council of Europe, another division of the Council of Europe because this type of intergovernmental organisation, they have their own lives too.
So another division has been promoting and that's through the cybercrime convention, the Budapest Convention and I would like to mention it, to insist that all of these workshop in Asia and South America, in Africa, have been organised thanks to a huge amount of money given by Microsoft, especially Microsoft to organise this workshop. So we have this but we shouldn't forget another positive instrument of the positive from our point of view, instrument of the Council of Europe, which is also a convention like the cybercrime convention, and this is the convention of the protection of person and data, convention 108 of the Council of Europe. And we very much hope that the Council of Europe will decide to promote the 108 convention as much as it promotes the cybercrime convention.
And good morning, Lee, the Council of Europe representative, the positive side of the Council of Europe.
On the process to draft this guide, first of all, I would like to mention that the guide itself is an annex of recommendations to Member States and although the recommendation of the Council of Europe, it's soft flow, it's nonbinding. It's very important. It's the level right under the convention, the treaty.
And it is important to the extent that the European code of human rights is making recommendations of the Council of Europe in its judgment. So what was important in this process is, first, of all, that civil society member and representatives of the IRP coalitions, including myself, were part of this process, not simply as observer, but as true members of the group at the same level as some governments represented there.
And then maybe we will get back to this a bit later in the discussion. On the content of the guide itself, with respect to the content of the charter, we have had some discussions and some decisions to make together in this group, especially on what is called in the charter, the right to access the internet. I think it's interesting if we have time later in this meeting to discuss whether or not we have approved this notion of a new right to access and for which reasons. Thank you.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much, Miriam. We will return to those substantive points, hopefully shortly.
We have Yan and then someone's hand up there. Okay, so first of all, yep.
>> PARTICIPANT: I want to ask a clarification question. My name is Shla loshide, I work on Internet policy in India. At one case, the report, it says that since this charter, it's based on human rights principles, so it will be binding upon states. So I want to clarify if it's binding in the same way that ICCPR is binding, for example.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Remains to be seen. It's not intended at the moment. We are a long, long road. This charter is a framing document. Some people ‑‑ there are great ambitions but the title of this workshop is towards charter 2.0, but it speaks in that language, as far as we can say right now, but there are many points on which to be binding a lot more discussion has to take place. But it's within that tradition.
>> PARTICIPANT: Adopted by who?
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Adoption. That's something about next steps, whether you think it should be adopted, a charter like this.
>> PARTICIPANT: At another point it does not include all rights but it doesn't mean that those rights don't exist. So obviously, I imagined there would be more discussions.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: It's very carefully worded that this is ‑‑ I'm not a lawyer here, so perhaps the expert group can help me out there. It's very carefully worded during the drafting, I certainly remember we had to be careful that you didn't write in such a way that the spirit of the document could be turned to purposes of repression. So it's not trying to saying some rights and not other rights. It's written within the UN legal framework. So I don't quite know what you are referring to exactly, perhaps you could elaborate.
>> PARTICIPANT: Good morning, my name is Beryl Aidi. I'm with the Human Rights Commission. First of all, I want to say, thank you very much for this information. I find it quite useful as we are going to be having some workshops with the wider NGO or human rights or civil society who are members of the main stream civil society but not involved in Internet Governance discourse or Internet rights discourse. So I think it's quite straightforward and quite clear and easy to understand.
I also want to appreciate the ‑‑ the articles themselves. Duties and responsibilities on the Internet. This is something that has been taken for granted, at least where I come from. People think they can just say anything on the Internet because of the freedom of expression and without really realizing that their duties and responsibilities. And so I appreciate the fact that it rises that and divided that into two respectful for others and then also responsibility for those who do which. I think safeguards against it being used ‑‑ or rather other laws that have ‑‑ that could be enacted that could be repressive or could violate human rights. Thank you.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much, Beryl. I think that responds to the point that we are at very well. Thank you.
Anybody else. Oh, sorry. Anybody else. I had you in the queue.
>> PARTICIPANT: Good morning, everyone, my name is Jan Moolman and I work with the APC women's right program. And the first thing really is to appreciate the growth and movement, I think, of the Internet rights, the principles and charter. I think really what we want to contribute to this discussion is a fact that equal application and understanding doesn't always result in equal experiences and consequences. Including, and, in fact, especially in the context of human rights. So we are really looking at gender dimensions and beginning to understand how the recommendations will affect different groups of people and equally. And I think that's the basis for a really interesting discussion that can move us into a ‑‑ into a space where we are considering that people are not homogenous, that responses are not homogenous and so the kinds of recommendations we are calling for a need to consider this.
One the things we are especially concerned about is how recommendations could result in a set of responses that could be appropriate for one group of people, but not for others. In the work that we are doing, we often find when we are talking about violence online, sexuality, the response by governments is to say, oh, so you need protection. And in the language of protection, what we also know is that it closes down spaces. It doesn't open them up. And so that's what we want to focus.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: A point duly taken. Of course this links to the agenda IT workshop where a number of the issues with the charters and clauses with respect to women's participation was also brought up. So I made a mental note of those things as well.
Just final comments on this particular of the session. We are going to move to next steps. Anybody else have any specific concrete ‑‑ oh, yes, sorry. Yes, go ahead.
>> PARTICIPANT: Hello. Yeah. So I'm ‑‑ Nika. I'm with the Internet freedom alliance. We had this cybercrime law that was passed into law last year, and when we were talking about the ‑‑ our protection against the law we use the Internet rights and principles so that we can forward our arguments again the law. So we really appreciate what is happening here and right now we are trying to ‑‑ actually, as you all know, we have this Magna Charta for Internet freedom and they also use the IRP document as reference when they were drafting the bill and we were really optimistic that the legislators in the Philippines will really look into this document as well so that we can have good legislation on governing our Internet. So, yeah.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you very much.
>> PARTICIPANT: I was in the main discussion yesterday on cybercrime and I was really disappointed that they are not really talking about rights there. It's just about technical problems online and no recognition of the thicks that we're doing here in Internet rights and principles and coalition. So I think it's good that we intervene if those types of discussions. I don't know. I'm just saying.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: It's given the cyber security and cybercrime as the hot topics your points are more protective. Be more proactive in rights not considered technical enough. It's part of the work to bring the high levels of ideas and principles and rights to the everyday nitty‑gritty of how the Internet has worked and designed and also how people use it. So this is the broad terrain in which we were working.
Someone else's hand was up. Who was it? Oh, Robert, of course. I'm sorry.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you. Robert Powell, member of the Internet rights principle coalition and college professor in Ohio. I find the use of this document, of the charter very helpful in a class that I teach in the digital age and I use human rights and the global Information Society by Rikke Jorgensen and this document actually allows me to shape lesson plans that can encourage a collection of case studies around identifying particular rights that are violated and how particular principles can address those rights. It is very helpful as an educational resource. Thank you.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: One more comment if there is one, before we move to next steps. We are sort of moving in that direction.
Is this somebody online? It's too early in the morning for some and too late at night for others.
Right. Let's move to next steps. We had a lot of discussions. We are getting a lot of questions about what our next stops are. We are a Dynamic Coalition. We are excited to see initiatives like the Council of Europe's guide where it anchors the charter in real life legislative practice. These are supplementary documents. It's exciting to hear how it's used in class. These strike as next steps that have already started but this is a coalition that's within the IGF. We have made it clear in the last few days that the charter as gone beyond the IGF. The IGF is simply a place that people come and sometimes impact is not immediately evident but nevertheless, we need a discussion about next steps in terms of ‑‑ and here's let's not worry about whether it's possible, not right now. The first thing you do when you think about next steps, you think, oh, I haven't got the money. I haven't got the time. I haven't got the people. I haven't got the bravado, I haven't got the skills. Can we just brainstorm?
I will write this up with Robert's help so we can issue a bullet point to the larger list. How is the list, that piece of paper going around with names, people writing their names. Where is it? Okay. Keep it going.
Any suggestions, ideas, please, the sky at the moment is the limit. We are not going to shoot you down in flames with no, we cannot and do the Obama, yes, we can if... okay.
Please.
>> PARTICIPANT: Hi. I'm Catherine Easton, I'm a legal academic in the UK. And first, I would like to congratulate you on this document. It's fundamental to how the Internet develops, keeping as was mentioned, a positive focus on rights. What I would like to talk about, as far as future steps are concerned are some potentially legalistic moves that you could take and apologize from coming from quite a strong legal background here, but it's been mentioned that this has been adopted as far as recommendations at an EU level and, again, I apologize for talking about this specifically EU level.
But what I was wondering is whether or not there's a case for working with member state governments in order to see this charter attached as either and amendment other a schedule to relevant domestic legislation and in this way, it can become more pervasive and have an impact more at a kind of ‑‑ a more local level. I mean, unless there are some regulations coming from the EU, there's no need for the actual Member States to move on this.
And I have seen this in relation to standards on accessibility where they have been mentioned as schedules to domestic legislation in the UK and this has given them much more of a robust, tangible impact on development of policy and development of law. So I was just wondering whether perhaps with the Council of Europe there is a need to talk about this at a higher level and get the Member States to embed this, perhaps not as direct primary legislation, but as a document that is referenced at the end of legislation decisions that are made.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thanks, Katherine for noting. That that's very down to earth. Thank you. No apologies needed to go the legalistic route. Yes, Carmen?
We are taking ideas at the moment. We are comment on whether they are useful or possible later. So Carmen? Yeah? Are.
>> PARTICIPANT: Hey. I'm Carmen Turk and I actually have ‑‑ it's not really a suggestion. It's kind of like a sharing an experience in Estonia during the ACTA protests, they were all over Europe and so I'm sure everybody knows what I'm talking about. In Estonia, they were extremely big. It was the biggest protest in Estonian history since '91 when the independence was regained. After ACTA, the government ‑‑ the civil society tried to kind of draft something for the government in order for it to, in the future, when enacting laws in the field of Internet would not go viral again as it did when enacting ACTA. So in that process, actually, civil society tried to do their own Estonian kind of principles and the IRP principle, rights and principles were referenced by me as a basis for it. So it was already a basis for draft law. So it's just an experience of how to use it in the legislative process.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thanks, Carmen. That's very useful to know. I think Miriam was next and someone else and Lee over here.
Oh, you have it.
>> PARTICIPANT: I just wanted to clarify that we're talking about the Council of Europe, not the council of the European Union. So it's even better, I mean. And about this issue of fusing this charter, that to have better national legislation or as a real tool for civil society, at a national level. I think what we could do, what is possible to do with this charter is taking ‑‑ I mean, right by right, as it is defined and we can use it first to develop some indicators on the level of ‑‑ on whether national legislation are compliant with human rights or not, and also we could use this article, for instance, I'm thinking of number 4, right to development to the Internet, which probably still needs a lot of work, yet we can use it to assess telecom regulation, because it has to do with telecom regulation at national and at international level. It has no do with network neutrality. So we can use this charter and each article of it to assess this legislation and, of course, help developing better national legislation.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Yes, exactly, 21 or 22, I think, clauses, each of themselves the beginning of ‑‑ the tip of various icebergs. So apart from addressing some of the need, perhaps for the writing, that's another step to at least use what we have currently as a focus, as a hub. Is that what you mean, like, focus on particular sections? I think that's a very good idea too. They are all good ideas so far.
Anybody else? Lee, apart from Lee?
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you, Marianne. Lee from the Council of Europe. I'm thinking about the charter and the guide that you mentioned, I think it's really important to try to measure what comes next. It's very difficult ‑‑ it's okay drafting and doing things and talking and having documents, but the very difficult thing, in many fields is to try to measure the impact in different countries across the world. Was it used? Was it referred to in Estonia? Because referrals to different documents get lost in the process of, you know ‑‑ a lot of documents I come across, people appropriate them and then don't refer back to them. So it makes it difficult to understand whether it was a real source of reference and it was useful.
So if the coalition can come together and say in Estonia, you know, it was used. In this country it was useful. In this country it was done like this. That will help to catalog and actually demonstrate how, you know, useful these documents are, not because it's a document, but because it changes the law or because it creates a movement or it clarifies the rights which is unclear and if it just means that there was a discussion, which clarified something in a right, in a country far away, that's very useful. That's very important. It's very difficult to explain to the policymakers the utility of something if you don't have sometimes proof that this is happening. Because they don't always refer back. So that's a very ‑‑ even next steps, to work with the Council of Europe, I think it's very useful.
Can we talk about the guide?
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I have talked about the launch tomorrow at 11:00. And perhaps you could tell us what you are looking for from us who can go.
>> PARTICIPANT: I think you said, these two processes are complimentary. I think ‑‑ you really need ‑‑ you all need to be there if you can really tomorrow, because it's not to add ‑‑ it's not just an event with the word "Europe" in the title because the Council of Europe. I want you to forget the word "Europe" because I really sincerely think that this is not anything about country or region. It's about people. It's about people's rights. And whether those rights are a little bit different over there or slightly modified over there, it doesn't matter. The IGF as been about bringing people together and discussing and coming together on things that they believe in. They believe in the Internet, they believe in the openness of the Internet. They believe in a free Internet and, of course, we believe in people's rights on the Internet and that's been the priority since the IGF began and the world summit process before and the ability of people to have rights and freedoms. They sometimes get lost in the politics of Internet, the control and the governance of Internet which goes very far away from people. And ‑‑ but it's a constant feature and massive feature on the agendas. It's always ‑‑ post of the events, let's say, three‑quarters always have a human rights dimension to them.
So that ‑‑ for me, that is the crux of it. I really think you can all be there, because if we can get this guide for you of the grant, if you can comment and input and if we can measure it, we can really push back in terms of the Internet governance and if we can create a reference point, you know, regional or global, you know, whichever title, it will be very useful to try to get ‑‑ if there's ‑‑ now there's a discussion about Internet Governance principles. Oh, I have to hurry.
If. That, in the next months we can have Internet Governance principles which are generally agreed across the world, it's a great source of reference. If we can do the same thing with the rights and what they mean in practice, that's a fantastic step. So, you know, that's where I think we should go, you know, having ‑‑ creating clarity on these rights in practice and that's where the guide goes. So I think you can contribute tomorrow.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. Thanks. I think that's a very important invitation to us all. Anybody else in terms of next steps? As the charter of human rights and principles. It's delicate distinction, but not all principles are human rights but one can argue that human rights are always a principle, but how and in what form is the question.
So there are actually discussions at the moment exactly coming down to some large, global agreement that brings us up to recognition and applicability but we are at the moment, just carrying on with what are the they steps in terms of the charter. More promotion, more outreach, measuring, joining the dots, really not settling for it got reference in a book list somewhere. I think Lee's point is very important. References for academics are important but for policymakers, uh, we shouldn't overrate ourselves. Okay?
So it's not just about being in a reference list.
However, if you are not in a reference list, you are nowhere. So I think at this point, we have to do more than just say we got reference.
Any other comments about what to do next? Someone ‑‑ no? There's a piece of paper still going around for those of you who just came into the room, if you wish to note your name and email address, or just so we know where you are from and who you are.
But, okay. Go.
>> PARTICIPANT: Okay. I don't know a lot about the process. This is my ‑‑ (No audio).
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Involved in the sense that I said in the beginning how Frank LaRue is a Special Rapporteur was very instrumental in moving the charter forward in its first version. This version was prepped to him. When the charter version 1.1, which is what this booklet is, was released and it's through that synergy that we had Frank LaRue's report on freedom of expression online and there's a direct link between that and the unit charter of human rights. I think those sorts of questions we can happily answer. Yes, I think it's something we need to ‑‑ the UN, it is embedded in the UN legal instruments but it also relates to very important moves at the UN level to recognize human rights online.
But recognition is the first step.
Anybody else? I think we have to move on. Yes, Shauna. Someone at the back? Just bear with us. I would like to move to the practical business shortly but I wanted to make sure that everyone has a chance. We are open to suggestions at any point. The IGF is not over yet. If you have a brilliant idea, please let us know. Go for it.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you. So this is sort of building on the previous question relating to building on human rights mechanisms. So I'm wondering, Marianne or anyone else in the room, how you see the Internet rights and principles charter inputting to discussions, for example, on hate speech or racism and the Internet and discussions about responses to that. So some of the discussions that had been had so far are the need for more access to the Internet by marginalized groups which I know is part of the principles but are there other ways you see the charter sort of inputting to those sorts of discussions?
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Dixie, Miriam? I think there's a lot of work being done. The Internet democracy project, Dixie herself and Ana you wrote on hate speech, or was it something else? I think the charter is for me, need to be brought into those ‑‑ as part the intervention of those conversations. I think if you read the charter closely, there are plenty of places where you can see that civil society activists are trying to stop the idea that freedom of expression means that you can be rude to everybody, everywhere, at any time. But this, of course is the difference between the first amendment in the US where you can be rude to anybody at any time, up to a point. Americans can correct me on that. And the rest of the European setting where perhaps that has to be regulated.
But, yes, I think the charter can be used. So how do you think the charter can be used in that sense, specifically in your point?
>> PARTICIPANT: Well, I think it's interesting. I think there are ‑‑ as you say, there are rights that are incorporated into the charter and so there are, of course, freedom of expression but there's also other freedoms related to, you know, freedom from discrimination, the right to life, liberty and security, and so I'm just sort of wondering whether or not you see there is a space for expansion or whether you see any of the rights and principles within the charter being developed in some way to specifically respond to these sorts of quite complex discussions.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I will take that as a very helpful suggestion, that, indeed, that's what we can do. I think Miriam mentioned it, each section be unpacked and made applicable to different situations, case studies so you have the section as it is and then you flesh it out, not try to do everything all at once. Yeah? So in fact, each section can be a sort of template in itself and feedback and then do a sort of loop, but absolutely. I think it's a very good suggestion. I support it personally. I hope we can as a coalition.
And we have someone else here?
>> PARTICIPANT: I was just going to say in defense of our first amendment in the United States ‑‑
(Chuckles).
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Please identify yourself.
>> PARTICIPANT: I'm Susan Anthony. I work for the federal government in Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. I was thinking about something as we were talking about this and it bothers me deeply and I was trying to figure out exactly where this would fit in and I think it probably would be a prohibited conduct, certainly, under a ‑‑ under these declarations and possibly under right of free speech in the United States, it was certainly rude. So what am I talking about?
For those of you who follow such issues, you may well know that the Redskins sports team name ‑‑ the Redskins being the football team for Washington, D.C., is very much in the news. It has been off and on for some years but it is incredibly hot, hot, hot right now.
So it's very interesting every time the "Washington Post" has an article online, makes one of its articles accessible online, there's, of course, an opportunity to comment, and there has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth with many people saying that the Redskins' name does not offend them. Of course they are not native.
At any rate, one person wrote something that so offended me an continues to bother me. He said, I have no objection and I am from a tribe. And I thought, now that is something we need to know. He said, I am from the tribe Slapaho. And I will thought, well, I think we feed to get that taken down. And I think that this would, in fact, violate the freedom of expression because it is an expression that offends and is disturbing. But we have a long ways to go in terms of educating people as to these lines between free expression and just damn rude and offensive.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Yes, this is always a very delicate issue, I think for regulators at a very local level, particularly as online circulation expands and augments these issues, yes, take down policies.
Was it Mike? Am I correct? Yes, thank you very much. A case study perhaps for future reference.
>> PARTICIPANT: Is the mic on? Speaking as a first amendment lawyer, what I ‑‑ I tried to take an historical view of rights, instruments, not just the first amendment, but I look ‑‑ and certainly in my current work, I look very hard at human rights instruments in different countries around the world and in the international human rights instruments and I think it helps to take an historical view because prior to what happened not just in the United States with freedom of expression under the first amendment, but with freedom of expression issues in many developed countries in the 20th century and it almost all happened in the 20th century, we came to realize, those of us who work in this space, that prior to that period of very, very rapid development, for almost all of human history, every government everywhere reserved to itself the right to shut people up.
And it was just understood that governments have the right to do that. And for all that one may find, you know, the particular environment of freedom of speech in the United States offensive from time to time, or actually on the Internet generally, where people often don't feel particularly localized to a jurisdiction, I think it's no surprise to anyone here that people occasionally feel the impulse to say rude things to one another on the Internet.
I think that articulating the freedom of expression principles in a strong way, at the outset of these debates in the 20th century has led to a very progressive interpretations of the international human rights instruments and of particular national human rights instruments as well that really do embody a great degree of tolerance for at least ‑‑ to some degree for offensive and troubling speech and if you think about why governments have historically reserved to themselves as a right to censor speech, just one more sentence, it's because they want to censor disturbing and troubling speech because nobody ever tries to censor the other kind.
So I just wanted to put that out there and I think that actually the human rights instruments that we're working on here, in the international freedom of expression guarantees are ‑‑ and the first amendment are all part of a very modern and progressive tradition that I think I'm proud to be a part of and I hope we continue to advance here.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. That links, I think ‑‑ last speaker, of course, the issue about hate speech and the difference between is rudeness a crime? Do we prosecute someone for being rude, but there's a slide into hate speech which is also a case study, along Robert's ideas as something that needs investigating according to specific sections of the charter to help highlight just these debates. We make they will relevant for policymakers eventually. So these discussions need to happen. Thank you, Mike. And the point is well taken.
Last comment and we are at 10:10, and I need my coffee and we have 5 or 10 minutes of things to sort out.
>> PARTICIPANT: Just to pick up on the points that I think you are making. I think there's rude ‑‑ there's rude comments. There's offensive comments and then there's threats. There are threats to violence. Someone saying I hate you, who do you think you are? Is not the same thing as I know where you live and I'm coming to kill you. Or in the instance of our work, I know where you live. I want you to be quiet and I'm coming to rape you. That's a very different conversation.
And I think often what happens is when we raise these issues, the anxiety is that we are calling for censorship. Is it censorship when you say to someone actually, that's not okay. Yeah, I think it's about the framing of the conversation that sometimes causes a kind of ‑‑ yeah, it causes an anxiety that what we are saying is regular, that what we are saying is criminalized, when I think that's not a productive entry point but what is important is to flesh out why is this happening and other different kinds of responses that are not about censorship because I don't think the entry point is to censor.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. Sorry. Just final ‑‑ we complete that. I think, yes. A more constructive ways to approach this, just ‑‑ did you have a. Okay.
We need the microphone because there are people transcribing. Remember, there's a whole world out there that will make up tomorrow morning and going to rush to their computers to read this transcript.
(Laughter).
They have set their alarm clocks to do so! So final point on this topic. I'm sorry to have to be brutal, but, yes, go.
>> PARTICIPANT: I was just saying that the hate speech paper was written by Ana and it's not public yet.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Sorry. When will it be public?
>> PARTICIPANT: You can ask.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. Thank you very much. That's very, very useful, everyone. I'm just going to move to some quick points, and obviously because they have to be continued on our list, if you want to sign up, to the coalition list, it is ‑‑ what is it? [email protected]. Please don't put any Spam in my inbox. These lists have a habit of coming in waves.
So I will move quickly if I may to some business and we will complete the business online. Just let me move my computer. For those who are new to the IRP coalition, we are as a Dynamic Coalition, a very much do it yourself and I mean do it yourself in a strong, positive sense of term, not do it yourself as a sad, we have no money sense of term.
Just to recall those who had not heard yet, we managed to raise $1,100, $1,200 money to finance the booklet and so we are looking for the last few dollars. If you have American dollars, press it into my hot, sweaty palm, please. I have 60 American dollars with me and various currencies. I will then make one credit card payment on my own credit card on behalf of you all because some people don't want to use a credit card, $5, $1, hey, I don't mind. I'm happy with anything and then we'll be there.
And also we are very active ‑‑ you will take rupee, yeah, because I will spend that. Okay. But I will ‑‑ I will spend rupee.
(Laughter)
Remember, remember. No, no, no, not too much. It's Thursday. It's Thursday. I have lots of stuff to buy. I will use my credit card to pay on your behalf. So thank you. Come up afterwards. The IRP coalition works with other dynamic Coalitions as Stuart Hamilton reminded us. We are an active member of the best bits which is a very important network and space emerging from the IGF with a large set of plans that we hope to contribute to. So we are not like a little island here and, of course, we have some important civil society organisations as well in governmental membership from APC and IT for Change, Council of Europe has been involved and so and so on and so forth.
We also have steering committee members volunteering. I will say good‑bye and thank you to some people who are very important to note for the record. I would like to say thank you and good‑bye and good luck to Matthias Kettemann. He was Dixie Hawtin in her cochair. He enters the steering committee. Matthias is a legal expert based now in Frankfurt. So my apologies public to Matthias for attributing him indirectly as German. He is, in fact, Austrian and I have corrected that and people will understand why I must do this publicly.
I have corrected it. These things happen. People think I'm British. I'm not! Okay?
With all due respect to the British.
Okay. Lee. Wake up.
(Laughter)
Okay. Now, that's our ‑‑ that's my former cochair, which means the post is open. Steering committee members, I would like to say good‑bye and thank you very much to the following people who have ‑‑ who have been helpful, very helpful this year and in previous years actually. Some of these steering committees have been around for a while and have been very instrumental in early versions. I would like to thank, Jaco Isoman, Elaine Barr, Mike Gerstine, Shayla Gerstein, but this stuff requires you to answer emails and do lots of things that sometimes are not possible and they have done a great service. Thank you very much. Can we give them a round of applause?
[ Applause ]
Thank you.
Oh, there's my accent written up there for you all to see. Oh, my goodness me. I would like to note that our steering committee stands at six members. Tapani. Thank you, Tapani, and Vic Szabados. He's new and young. Young people, please step forward! Dixie Hawtin, is still ‑‑ please tell me if I'm wrong, people. There's no obligation because I'm naming you. Matthias Kettemann he indicates that he's on as well and Robert Bodle, who you all met. And that's the current steering committee, member of six people, plus me. Is six people sufficient? Do we need more? If we need more, then we did ‑‑ then I propose we did what we did last year, self‑dominate and go through an election, endorsement process online. But the question is, in this room do we need more than six people on the steering committee? Is that enough?
I mean, I'm not saying this decision should be made here definitively, but Dixie, do you think you have any input. For a couple of minutes, I think it's important to consider this. Steering committees there to help knock ideas around and provide suggestions and put up with emails from the chairs. Dixie and then Olivia.
>> PARTICIPANT: I don't think we necessarily need more people, because six is a good number but I think we probably do want new people, because if everyone that's on the steering committee has been on the steery committee last year as well, then, you know, we can stagnate it and it will be good to idea.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Thank you, Dixie. It's my fault. Entirely. I wanted to say, we had a successful outing at the Lisbon European dialogue of Internet Governance, that was a fabulous time. And Belgrade, I will be there for a Council of Europe thing. So the IP coalition through victor, particularly who is based in Hungary. Victor engaged with younger people. I endorse Dixie's point. We don't ‑‑ we could hang out with six, but I think we could be open to new members, particularly ‑‑ would I be able to say that younger members. I don't want to be ageist, but we are getting a bit middle aged with all due respect. Maybe it's just me.
If anybody wants to join the senior ladies caucus, it was formally convened last night at the pool, by the way, you may join us. No ‑‑ no previous experience required.
Okay. But Dixie, so Olivier.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you, Olivier speaking. I think the committee may wish to consider having some strategic positions in the committee so thinking of people you might want to invite from outside this room, from elsewhere that might be helpful for the committee. And then, of course, it really is down to you guys to find out how the workload is and if you need a heck of a lot more people for all the work that happens, then by ‑‑ you know, by all means grow it.
On the other hand, if you are having a great time, then ‑‑ and there's not very much work like that and I suspect that's not the case.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: No.
>> PARTICIPANT: Then shrink the committee and end up with one. I'm kidding on this one. You are doing an excellent job.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I think the point is taken. It's not a closed shop. I think we open it up do. We open it up to the list. If anybody wants to self‑nominate now for the steering committee, let us know and this can be put to the list afterwards.
Is there any other business?
>> PARTICIPANT: It's not any other business. It's just the ‑‑ the point before, which is to say that everyone ‑‑ on the steering committee, it's always difficult to see, to decide whether you have the time to do that extra work because you have lots of work and that goes for me too, but I'm committed to helping. Not serving on steering committee. If I could be loosely connected.
If could you strategically grab me for something, one thing, occasionally, I can help. And that's being loosely associated. I think that's something that needs to be understood. I think there are plenty of people would can do that rather than being nominated and appointed and having their name everywhere.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: That's important, Lee. If anyone who wants to be in a loose group in off list emails to help.
>> PARTICIPANT: Define a title, loose association.
>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Friends of the steering committee.
There's a love phrase in the Netherlands where I work and live and have worked for many years and still live part time, yeah, whatever. They say, "critical friends." So critical friends of ‑‑ or friendly critics. Okay.
But loosely. So I think that's a great idea. Let's put that forward. We still have a list of people, I think there's a second page walking around the room. Is there any other business? I have one other item I would like to also ‑‑ because we have two copies left of the charter. I have more in my office, but two for now. Stampede about to begin. The guide for tomorrow's Council of Europe launch and some flyers of a very important book framing the net from Rikke Jorgensen who is a member of the expert group of the charter and expert group of the Council of Europe guide and she's written, I would suggest the definitive work on how human rights is being framed in a number of areas. So I would like to plug this book on Rikke's behalf. I think it's an important reference book.
Without too much further adieu, I would like to say thank you very much for coming at this hour and lovely to you have and see you around on the list or in person.
Money to me. Money to me and the final list of names and addresses to me as well and we will try to transcribe all of those. Thank you.
(Applause)
(End of session 10:24 a.m.)
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication access realtime translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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