[Ecommerce] Civil Society declaration on the WSIS Declaration of Principles

[Manon Anne Ress]

This is also reminder that there will be a briefing on Thursday July 24 
3-4pm Historic building of the NAtional Academy of Sciences (2100 C ST 
NW, Washington DC-Lecture Room) with Adama Samassekou Chairman of the 
WSIS prparatory Committee and rep of the Swiss Government.

http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis/hris-cs-180703.html

Declaration on behalf of the Civil Society Plenary
Human Rights in the Information Society (HRIS) Caucus
July 18, 2003 Address to the intersessional meeting of July 15-18, 2003, 
Paris, France

SNIP
...We fear that the Draft Declaration of Principles will represent a 
major setback with regards to rights and principles which have 
previously been agreed upon in international fora.

In Paragraph one, you state as representatives of the world's people, 
your wish to build "a new kind of society". We are asking you to clearly 
re-affirm your commitment to building an information and communication 
society that is based on human rights and human dignity. We are asking 
you to re-affirm in this context the principles of the universality and 
indivisibility of all human rights, and their centrality for democracy, 
the rule of law and sustainable development.

Our worst fears are confirmed in reading paragraph 21-22, in which 
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is re-written, 
with no reference to its source, amputating the section that guarantees 
that freedom of expression shall be exercised without interference of 
any kind, regardless of frontiers. This threatens not only the rights of 
all individuals to freedom of expression, information and communication, 
but also press and other media freedoms. We note a similar regression 
with regard to several other rights. What is meant by the rule of law 
(38A) if it must be accompanied by "flexible" regulation, "taking into 
account national realities"? We support the call for strengthening 
gender equality and are astounded that this is even a debate. Likewise 
for the right to privacy, a right that is clearly identified in the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (art. 12 ). With regards to 
intellectual property, we are very concerned to note that the 
Declaration of Principles, in keeping with the tendency of the TRIPS 
agreement, breaks the delicate balance of article 27 of the UDHR between 
the rights of authors and the rights of all people to share in 
scientific advancement and its benefits. Worse still, the Declaration 
does not even refer to authors or creators, but only to rights owners.

END OF QUOTE


More on the meeting and the HR caucus at:
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis/



Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176