organized by the Dynamic Coalition on the Internet Bill of Rights at the Rio Internet Governance Forum, 13 November 2007

Report by Vittorio Bertola

Panelists:
Hon. Min. Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira, Minister of Culture, Brazil
Prof. Stefano Rodotà, University of Rome, Italy
M.me Catherine Trautmann, Member of the European Parliament, France
Ms. Robin Gross, IP Justice, United States
Mr. Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza, Fundaçao Getulio Vargas, Brazil

Moderator: Mr. Vittorio Bertola, Società Internet, Italy

The "Internet Bill of Rights" Dynamic Coalition, founded at the Athens IGF, has been prompting for the last year a discussion on the appropriate instruments to further the advancement and enforcement of human rights over the Internet, and on the types of rights, both traditional and innovative, to be covered by such instruments; this was its second annual workshop (the first having been held at the Athens IGF). The workshop was extremely well attended, by over 200 people, with the room entirely full for most of the time, and a lot of interest and active participation ? actually the session had to be extended up to 12:30 to accommodate as many interventions from the floor as possible.

The panel started with professor Stefano Rodotà proposing the vision for an Internet Bill of Rights and for its Dynamic Coalition as emerging from the first year of work:

• Conceive the Bill of Rights as a set of documents of different kinds, rather than as a single statement, and as an ongoing and continuous process;
• Conceive the campaign as a "glue" or "common roof" among all the Dynamic Coalitions and the work they are doing on specific areas, which will not be duplicated by this coalition;
• Not reopen existing statements of rights, but build on them;
• Consider the work that was already done in the past, in terms of Internet / ICT rights charters, and cooperate with other coalitions and efforts;
• Work on additional documents to specify better how the existing rights apply in the Internet environment, including the issues of how to ensure that they are kept into account when drafting Internet policy, and how to enforce the existing rights;
• Work on additional documents to define and recognize the new emerging principles of Internet governance (network neutrality, interoperability etc.);
• Contribute to monitoring and enforcement activities regarding the existing rights and principles and those that might be established during the work;
• Work on a process framework for the production of the above documents.

Minister Gilberto Gil reiterated his wholehearted support for the importance of this endeavour, particularly to defend the rights of Internet users and in particular the wealth of global cultural diversity; he suggested to write a "Letter from Rio", which he would like to sign, to raise attention and support to this project.

Catherine Trautmann added the perspective from the European Parliament, particularly on a range of different rights and issues that need to be covered by the work, and also on the process to be followed for its accomplishment, including the special role of Parliaments.

Robin Gross exposed a long and comprehensive list of rights that should be recognized in a Bill of Rights process, and stressed the urgent need for actual enforcement of the rights that already exist, in particular inside the current Internet governance venues.

Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza reported about the preparatory events that were held in Brazil, and showed how to contribute to the process by using the Coalition's website and mailing list, encouraging further participation by attendees.

Vittorio Bertola reported about the Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights, an international conference organized in Rome by the Italian Government to discuss the matter, which saw the participation by 53 official delegations and attendees from 70 countries, and which, in its conclusions, came to the definition of the Bill of Rights as exposed above. He also reported about the Coalition meeting held in Rio on Monday, where such conclusions were adopted and where a working plan for year 2008 was adopted. Such working plan will focus from one side on a variety of pratical activities, including:

• preparing an inventory of existing activities, scientific papers and legal instruments to define and enforce rights in the Internet environment (to which the Coalition welcomes contributions by all IGF attendees);
• publishing articles and scientific results;
• promoting the monitoring of violations to existing rights and the awareness about instruments to enforce them;
• doing outreach to gain new members and participants, as well as expressions of support by any stakeholder, and raise awareness about the campaign through the use of online communications devices;

Open discussion followed for over 45 minutes, in which over 25 interventions were made. It is impossible to summarize the interventions in detail, but they reflected the extremely broad range of issues, principles and rights that IGF participants consider important and would like to be encompassed in this process. Some interventions warned about the importance (shared by the panelists) of not rediscussing the existing rights framework, but rather building on it to ensure that such rights do not stay on paper, but are actually considered and enforced.

In general, the overall sentiment of the meeting was that the Bill of Rights initiative constitutes an important part of the activities hosted by the IGF, and that a successful accomplishment of this venture could be a historical step forward towards a positive development of the Internet, to the advantage of the global Information Society and of all its citizens.

As such, the workshop supported in general the proposal put forward by the Dynamic Coalition, that the framing and enforcement of Internet rights should become one of the main themes and objectives of the IGF since the next IGF meeting in Delhi.

After the workshop, two governmental members of the Coalition - in the persons of the Minister of Culture of Brazil, Gilberto Gil, and of the Undersecretary of State of Communications of Italy, Luigi Vimercati - signed a joint declaration in which they support the vision and plans of the Coalition and invite all stakeholders to participate in its activities.

The Dynamic Coalition looks forward to implementing the plan of action agreed in Rio and explained in the workshop. In particular, an international meeting of the members of the Dynamic Coalition could be convened in next spring, so to prepare further steps in view of the third IGF meeting in Delhi, which will host the third annual workshop of the coalition.

« Back to documents