This progress report was posted to the IGF Advisory Group on 30 June 2008, as requested to all Dynamic Coalitions.

Dynamic coalitions have been requested by the MAG to report back on their achievements and activities since the Rio IGF.This report supplements the workshop report that the Internet Bill of Rights Coalition submitted immediately after their workshop at the Rio IGF, providing an update about the coalition's activities since then and its proposals for work at the 2008 IGF.

The proposal of an Internet Bill of Rights was first conceived at the outset of the World Summit for Information Society, in Tunis, 2005. The Internet Bill of Rights dynamic coalition (IBR-DC) was formed after the Athens IGF in 2006 to define the rights and duties of internet users, and ensure that these are incorporated into internet governance policy processes. The coalition acts as an umbrella to bring together all of the diverse concerns and issues that lie at the intersection between rights and internet governance. It seeks to find solutions to problems which threaten established rights in the internet environment, and to formulate strategies for advancing rights.

The IBR-DC is open to all stakeholders. One hundred and ten people are currently subscribed the active mail and discussion list. The coalition holds monthly telephone conferences which are open for all members to join.

The IBR-DC gained momentum at the 2007 IGF in Rio de Janeiro, aided in part by the Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights, hosted by the Italian government in September 2007 which helped to lay the foundations for productive discussion and action. At the IGF 2008 in Rio, the IBR-DC held both an organizational meeting for members and a successful workshop. During the organizational meeting, the DC agreed on an ambitious working plan for the coming year, including working on organisational documents, outreach, and agreement to focus on how best to enforce existing rights in the internet environment. The IBR-DC's workshop was extremely well attended, with participants and panelists, including the host country's Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, committing to support the DC's work. Two governmental members of the coalition, Brazil and Italy, made a joint declaration of support, calling for rights relating to the internet to be framed and enforced, and to be a major theme for discussion at future IGFs.

At the IGF Open consultations in February 2008, the IBR-DC released a statement outlining their vision to place rights at the core of internet governance, and to provide a platform for discussion and the development of tools and mechanisms to achieve this. The IBR-DC is concerned about the lack of priority given to rights on the proposed agenda for the 2008 IGF, and hopes to work with the MAG to address this issue.

The IBR-DC is currently working with the Internet Governance Civil Society Caucus on a proposal for a workshop at the 2008 IGF which will examine how rights can be framed and enforced on the internet. The IBR-DC has also proposed to hold a separate workshop bringing all of the IGF dynamic coalitions together to build agreement that human rights will be mainstreamed within their work. The discussion and outcomes from this workshop will feed into the coalition's main workshop session which will provide the IGF 2008 with an update on the coalition's work and identify strategies for moving forward into the future. The coalition would like to offer its support in helping to shape the main workshop session on security, privacy and openness, with a view to upholding the commitment to human rights that was made in the Geneva Declaration of Principles.

The IBR-DC has a number of activities planned in the run up to the 2008. These include a workshop at the iCommons summit in Sapporo on July 31st, and a second Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights in Sardinia on October 23rd-24th. Members of the coalition are also actively reaching out to expand membership and raise awareness, and are discussing possible research and policy collaborations. Members also continue to address the issue of rights on the internet in their daily work, and feed findings and progress back to the coalition via the mailing list, phone conference and wiki page.

The IBR-DC is growing rapidly, and the group has recently adopted a formal agreement on organsiational structure and process to manage this process. The group has also formed a multi-stakeholder steering committee and is about to assign a chair who will further coordinante, energize and represent the initiative.

« Back to documents