6/18/03

These articles originally appeared on we!, our weekly newsletter.

A "call for NGO signatures" document-campaign has been recently circulated among WSIS-involved civil society organisations which was spearheaded by Rik Panganiban from the World Federalist Movement.

The document is a letter to Bertrand Ramcharan, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, asking him to attend the WSIS PrepCom-3 in order "to ensure that human rights language in the WSIS process is comprehensive, strong and consistent with resolutions and decisions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and build upon human rights language developed through the various UN world summits and conferences" as stated in the letter.

Panganiban submitted this proposal to the WSIS Human Rights Caucus, co-ordinated by Rikke Frank Jorgensen from the Danish Institute for Human Rights and Meryem Marzouki, the HR Caucus co-coordinator. The HR caucus members would like to gather as much signatures from organisations as possible so that the letter can be seen as a strong demand. However, they posted that the deadline for sending signatures was last 12 June 2003.

The HR Caucus is not the only group that incorporates human rights perspectives in the WSIS. Women's groups involved in engendering the WSIS process have also drafted documents that are gender-specific yet have HR concerns. The NGO Gender Strategies Working Group, in the document "Seven Must-Haves," stressed that having a human rights framework is one of the important priority issues for gender equality in the WSIS process. It states that "a human rights framework needs to be applied in the issues analyses, strategies, and solutions presented in the WSIS process. Women's human rights instruments and crucial communications rights such as freedom of expression, the right to information, and the right to communicate need to be reiterated in the final outcomes of the WSIS.

Emerging concerns such as 'information security' on the Internet should not in any way infringe on people's privacy and right to communicate freely, using information and communications technologies. Policies that seek to redress the growing use of the Internet for trafficking, violent adult pornography, and pedophilia rings must not, under any circumstances, be used for centralist control of all other content development on the Web."

The document "Seven Must-Haves" or the priority issues for gender equality in the WSIS process may be accessed at: http://www.isiswomen.org/onsite/wsis/prepcom2-genderstrat.html.

To know more about the HR letter and this effort, please contact Meryem Marzouki at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You may also visit the Human Rights Caucus website at: http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis.

Below is a copy of the letter:

Bertrand Ramcharan
Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations
Geneva, Switzerland

RE: Human Rights and the World Summit on the Information Society

Your Excellency Mr. Bertrand Ramcharan:

The under-signed civil society organizations strongly encourage your active participation in the preparatory committee and summit meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society, taking place in September and December 2003, respectively. Human rights are an essential requirement of the Information Society, as elaborated in the draft declaration of the WSIS (WSIS/PCIP/DT/1-E):

The essential requirements for the development of an equitable Information Society include: The respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. Notably the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and seek to, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers in accordance with article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to unhindered access by individuals to communication media and information sources…

As the United Nations highest human rights official, your good offices are needed to ensure that human rights language in the WSIS process is comprehensive, strong and consistent with resolutions and decisions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and build upon human rights language developed through the various UN world summits and conferences.

Civil society organizations view ICTs as having both tremendous applications that enhance human rights, such as through the rapid dissemination of action alerts and instant access to human rights information, and disturbing capacities to greatly diminish human rights, such as by providing governments with means enabling intrusive surveillance and monitoring and therefore, repression.

Only through the active participation of governments, civil society, and international human rights institutions such as your Office can these ICTs be best harnessed to maximize the protection of human rights worldwide.

We hope the Office of the High Commissioner will become involved in this event and we look forward to our ongoing collaboration in ensuring that the World Summit on the Information Society has a strong human rights focus. In particular we are hoping that you personally will be able to attend the Third Prep Com, to take place in Geneva in September 15-27, 2003, and we look forward to meeting with you at that time. We also hope that the Office of the High Commissioner will be prominent in the deliberations of the Summit in December, and that we will harness the potential of information technology to serve the cause of human rights to the Summit in Tunisia and beyond.

We look forward to your reply.