Re: [ICANN-EU] Article 31

[Wolfgang Kleinwächter <wolfgang.medienstadt@okay.net>]

Dear Thomas and others,

It is good to see how history is circling. In 1968 Jean dÀrcy, the late
director of the Institute for International Communication (IIC) in London
"invented" in the debate around satellite broadcasting and its regulation in
the 1960s (the first communication satellite Telstar was launched in 1964 /
the UN had established an Outer Space Committee in 1965) the "right to
communicate" (RTC). RTC was seen as a further development of Article 19,
enshrined in the UN Human Rights Declaration and the UN Covenant on
Political and Civil Rights (!966). The two elements which went beyond
Article 19 in the RTC concept has been "access" and "participation". While
article 19 secured the "right to information". which was seen as a
one-way-process, leading to "imbalances" inthe flow of information, RTC was
a label for "communication", a two-way-process, more in favour of "balance".
UNESCO established a special study group on the issue. The group presented
its lengthy and detailed report to UNESCO`s 19th General Conference in
Nairobi (1976). One conesquences from this was the establishemnt of the
"International Commission for the Study of Communication" under the
chairmanship of Sean MacBride, former Irish Foreign minister and holder of
both the Nobel and the Lenin Peace Prize. (Thomas will understand "Wenn ich
nicht mehr weiter weiß, gruende ich `nen Arbeitskreis"). The "MacBride
Commission" produced a controversial report, calling for a "New World
Information and Communicatioin Order" (NWICO). There are hundreds of
publications, mainly in the US, around NWICO and the RTC. NWICI became a
hostage of the North-Spouth and East-West conflicts of the 1980s. USA and UK
left UNESCO and the debate ended without any reslt with the fall of the
Berlin Wall. A group of activists (journalists, academicians, NGOs) which
realized that the failure of both NWICO and RTC was mainly the result of the
strong involvement of governments pushed forward the establishment of a
non-governmental "MacBride Round Table on Global Communications" which had
annual meetings between 1989 and 1999 in places like Harare, Seoul,
Honolulu, Dublin, Prague, Istanbul, Boulder, Amman and elsewhere. The
MacBride Round Table remained an "intellectual debating club" and ended with
the 20th century.

Anyhow, the Internet can, maybe, learn something from the RTC and NWICO
debate. So while I am joining you in the warning not to reinvent the wheel,
I encourage you to think ahead along the lines of the right to communicate
and its key issues which go beyound Article 19 (or Article 10 in the
European Human Rights Convention or the relevant articles in the national
constitutions, like Article 5 in the German basic Law): access,
participation, two-way communication. You can add easily today also openess
and transparency.


----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>
To: Constantine S. Chassapis <cschassapis@acm.org>
Cc: Berend Schuitema <okhela@iafrica.com>; <jefsey@online.fr>;
<icann-europe@fitug.de>; <icann-candidates@egroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: [ICANN-EU] Article 31


On 2000-08-28 01:59:13 +0300, Constantine S. Chassapis wrote:

>  "Every human being has the right freely to receive material from
>   and freely to transmit material to the cyberspace, currently
>   known as the Internet."

> Now what do you think about that? When I finished the
> phrase I felt something weird and wonderful inside.

Why should this be valid just for cyberspace?  Look, for instance,
at article 5 (1), phrase 1, of the German Grundgesetz:

Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild
frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein
zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten.

Basically, this means that you have freedom of speech, and freedom
of information when informing yourself from publically accessible
sources.

My point here is that we shouldn't start to re-invent the wheel,
just because this is cyberspace.  Actually, re-inventing the wheel
has done more damage to the internet than anything else, I believe.

Think, for instance, about all the Communications Decency Act and
it's relatives in other legislations.  Most of the debates held, and
many of the problems perceived, have been solved in the past.

However, the application of the existing solutions and thoughts to
the net was often flawed, or new (and worse) solutions were sought
because "everything is different on the net", because "it's like
broadcasting", etc.  It's often interesting to see the arguments and
ideas of law scholars change once they have understood that the
internet is just "some thing" facilitating point-to-point
communications between participants.  (Note that I don't deny that
there legal concepts which just don't scale to internet dimensions.)

It's also interesting to watch how new generations of officials and
politicians repeat the mistakes of the past, verbatim.

So, dear candidates, please always have a look at the arguments and
solutions of the past, before trying to come up with solutions of
your own. Please, try to avoid re-inventing the wheel all the time,
and don't assume that everything which works off-line must
automatically fail on-line.

--
Thomas Roessler                         <roessler@does-not-exist.org>