Introduction
The Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition is an open network of individuals and organisations based at the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) committed to making human rights and principles work for the online environment.
Since the 2009 IGF in Sharm El Sheikh we have been working to outline how human rights standards should be interpreted to apply to the Internet environment, and the internet policy principles which must be upheld in order to create an environment which supports human rights to the maximum extent possible.
The main work of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRP Coalition) has been to translate existing human rights to the internet environment to build awareness, understanding and a shared platform for mobilisation around rights and principles for the internet.
Our flagship document, the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet covers the whole gambit of human rights drawing on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other covenants that make up the International Bill of Human Rights at the United Nations (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights. aspx). It is the outcome of work from many people and organizations over the years and is growing in stature as others start to apply its 23 clauses to specific situations.
To get more directly involved you are welcome to join the IRP Mailing list:
https://lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org/mailman/listinfo/irp
Feel free to contact us at: info[at]irpcharter.org
Action Plan
The Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition is working to uphold human rights on the internet and to root internet governance processes and systems in human rights standards.
The dynamic coalition sets out to promote, and provide a space for multi-stakeholder dialogue and collaboration. We also aim to be an umbrella platform for facilitating collaboration on human rights issues in the Internet Governance Forum process.
Members of the coalition work individually and in partnership to promote processes and instruments to frame and enforce rights on the Internet. More specifically, the coalition aims to:
- Raise awareness of fundamental human rights and what they mean on the internet.
- Discuss and anchor global public policy principles to preserve the openness of the internet and ensure that its continued evolution is framed by the public interest, through open and extensive stakeholder involvement.
- Encourage all stakeholders to address issues of human and civil rights in policy-making, contributing to a people-centric discourse and policy formulation in the internet governance space.
- Identify ways in which human rights can be applied to the Internet and other ICT technologies, and evaluate the applicability of existing formal and informal guidelines and regulatory frameworks.
- Identify measures for the protection and enforcement of human rights on the internet, while pushing for people-centric issues and public interest based internet governance policy making.
- Describe the duties and responsibilities of internet users and other stakeholders which, together with their rights, will serve to preserve and promote the public interest on the internet.
Stakeholders
Co-Chairs
Robert Bodle (2013-2015), Academic, USA
Catherine Easton (2014-2016), Academic, UK
Steering Committee (2014-2015)
Marianne Franklin, Academic, New Zealand
Hanane Boujemi, Civil Society, Morocco
Rafik Dammak, Technical, Tunisia
Carlos Affonso P. Da Souza, Academic, Brazil
Matthias Kettemann, Academic, Austria
Parminder Jeet Singh, Civil Society, India
Viktor Szabados, Civil Society, Hungary
Tapani Tarvainen, Technical, Finland
The IRP coalition mailing list has over 320 active participants from government departments, intergovernmental organisations, the private sector, civil society organisations, academics and the technical community, including members of the following institutions:
- Government of Brazil, Ministry of Culture
- Government of Italy, Ministry of Reform and Innovation in the Public Administration
- Government of France, French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
- Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM)
- (Advisor to) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina
- Google Inc.
- UNESCO
- Centre for Technology and Society of Getulio Vargas Foundation School of
Law, Brazil
- IP Justice, United States
- Società Internet (ISOC Italy), Italy
- Free Software Foundation Europe
- Committee for a Democratic United Nations, Germany
- Institute of International Law, University of Graz, Austria
- Net Dialogue Project, Universities of Harvard and Stanford, United States
- Global Partners and Associates, UK
