IGF 2021 WS #167 Digital Human Rights:How IGF-born guides support the Roadmap

This session explored how digital human rights documents emerged or inspired by the Internet Governance Forum and its community support the UN Roadmap for Digital Cooperation on the promotion of human rights online and help achieve the sustainable development goals.

It focused on selected documents analysing  how they emerged, how they translated existent human rights law and norms to the online environment and reflected on its relevance, achievements and main challenges. The session was moderated by Claudia Padovani, Dennis Redeker and Jacob Odame-Baiden. Michael J Oghia was the Emcee in Katowice.

The first part of the session looked at documents that emerged within the IGF community by focusing on their background and context and how they sit in the tradition of international human rights documents.

Speaking on behalf of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition’s Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet (IRPC Charter), Marianne Franklin explained how the Charter draft initiated in 2009 was an attempted to bring all sector together to translate existing international human rights documents to the online environment. It draws on the United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) and its covenants. It worked as a bridge connecting the digital world with human rights which at the time was not an obvious connection.

Edetaen Ojo spoke on behalf of the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (African Declaration) and gave some insight on the context that led to the African Declaration African Internet Governance Forum (the African IGF) that took place in Nairobi in Kenya in 2013 at a time when many African countries were developing laws regulating various aspects of the digital space. These were mostly not human rights-respecting norms and the idea was to establish a set of rights-based principles that would guide law and policymaking as well as advocacy around the Internet. 
Both documents draw on established international human rights and norms which were translated to the online context and the African Declaration paid particular attention to Human Rights instruments on the African continent, especially the African charter on human and people's rights adopted in 1981. Marianne Franklin and  Edetaen Ojo shared how over the years both documents have been disseminated within and outside the IGF Community how they reached out to policymakers, judiciaries, civil society organisations, the technical community, and academia. And how international initiatives and international organisations such as the UNESCO, UN, or the Council of Europe have acknowledged, collaborated, and endorsed these documents. Local and regional outreach has been crucial to helping disseminate these documents and translations play a significant role: the African Declaration has been translated into Portuguese, Arabic, and French while the IRPC Charter has been translated into 12 languages and 11 of those are now in booklet form.

As for the relevance of these documents in the current times both speakers considered that they are more relevant than ever: the prosecution of journalists, bloggers and rights defenders, internet shutdowns, online surveillance, and other human rights violations are happening in the digital world, and the current pandemic crisis has not only highlighted the digital divide but also created opportunities for human rights violations online.  The African Declaration initiative published the paper Impact of COVID‑19 on Digital Rights in Africa looking at how the principles in the African Declaration have been impacted by COVID‑19 and the response of various governments on the continent to the pandemic.

Sean O Siochru intervened on behalf of the Just Net Coalition noting on the Delhi Declaration, another IGF inspired initiative emerged and urging on the importance of looking at the whole spectrum of human rights online as some are not getting the same level of attention and the need to move from declarations to action, which is now the focus of the Coalition. Marianne Franklin highlighted the connections between IGF-led documents: e.g., the IRPC Charter is strongly connected with the Council of Europe’s Guide to Human Rights for Internet Users (CoE Guide) and the Brazilian Marco Civil. Wolfgang Benedek who was part of the expert group on both the IRPC Charter and the CoE Guide shared insights on how this document emerged as a result of the IRPC Charter but covering a less wide range of rights and aimed as an educational tool. On the Marco Civil, which passed into law in 2014, Marianne Franklin explained how this document was a very inspiring process with a very broad national Civil Society consultation framework.

Ana Neves spoke on behalf of the Portuguese government, which recently adopted The Portuguese Charter of Human Rights in the Digital Age (Portuguese Charter) and shared that the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Lisbon Declaration on digital rights approved in June 2021 worked as the kickstart for the future possible EU charter on digital rights leading to the national initiative, which despite its topdown approach ( a government and parliament initiative) also included the input of its citizens. Ana Neves highlighted some of its provisions, including net neutrality, the creation of a social tariff for Internet access services, the prohibition of Internet shutdowns, and the creation of fact-checking structures. Following up on Ana Neves' intervention Wolfgang Benedek added that like some of the issues mentioned such as the issue of disinformation, hate speech was not mentioned in the COE’s guide but were covered in a posterior document. He stressed that would be important to ensure that new efforts look at the already existing materials. Anriette Estherhuysen highlighted how initiatives such as the IRPC Charter and the African Declaration have been important advocacy documents and great tools to help national initiatives such as the Portuguese Charter and others as these frameworks make the process of translating human rights law to the online environment much easier.

The last part of the session looked at these documents inspired local initiatives. Raashi Saxena highlighted the importance of these as awareness-raising and educational tools and the work that needs to be done to promote universal digital human rights that both the global South and the global north can engage with. She highlighted the work that the IO Foundation is doing in the effort to create a Universal Declaration on Digital Rights (UDDR).  Aik Van Eemeren shared how the Cities for Digital Rights Coalition emerged in 2018 when a group of people from several cities came together during Mozilla fest event in London and how the Coalition grew from three to 55 cities worldwide. Drawing on examples from his city in Amsterdam Aik Van Eemeren highlighted how the Cities Declaration inspired by the IRPC Charter and supported by the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) has been a moral support an important framework to policy makers and how it inspired a variety of projects in cities around the globe. Some of the Coalition’s projects were shared via the Zoom Chat: https://research.ngi.eu/public-procurement-conditions-for-trustworthy-a…, https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/more-information, https://citiesfordigitalrights.org/global-observatory-urban-ai, https://cities-today.com/amsterdam-introduces-mandatory-register-for-se…. An intervention from Sarah Boscaro, a student from the University of Padova closed this part of the session. She explained how together with other colleagues Delar (Germany), Hebrew (Turkey) an Instagram advocacy campaign was created with the goal of spreading the knowledge of the charter of Human Rights and principles of the Internet among young people due to needing to be educated on what our rights are on the Internet. 

Anriette Estherhuysen delivered an end-of-session keynote looking at the relevance of these documents in the wider UN IGF ecosystem and how these can mutually support each other. She noted that the fact these bottom-up initiatives that come from within the IGF Community are powerful tools and have had a ripple effect at the sectoral, national, and regional levels and that this should be celebrated.  The main challenge she pointed out is how to connect them all and she called for more collaborations and partnerships to bring this movement forward. Anriette Estherhuysen added that working together by creating bridges between different approaches (e.g, human rights vs social justice) and overcoming political tensions, and linking the rights frameworks to policy frameworks these initiatives can the impact that aim for. She urged the community not to give up on the IGF space: despite its flaws, it brings all stakeholders together and if used effectively can still achieve meaningful practices, partnerships across stakeholder groups. Dynamic coalitions and particularly the IRPC can work as a space to share our learning and share our progress and allow critical debate. 

In the closing statement, Minda Moreira noted how it has been inspiring to see the work of the IGF community and the initiatives that developed from this space in awareness-raising and supporting Human Rights online.  Following up on Anriette’s call, she highlighted the importance of joining the dots, bringing these initiatives together, creating collaborations and partnerships to advance the work that has been done to make a real difference.