50th Anniversary UN Declaration of Human Rights

[William Drake]

Hi,

The UN in Geneva had a big to do the other day for this, in my wife's  
building actually, the place was packed.  I didn't get in, but from  
what I heard there wasn't much discussion of the Internet and related  
global communication aspects.  Which isn't entirely surprising, given  
the composition and orientation of the HRC, etc.  You can check out  
the program and list of speakers (including governments that spent  
the day arresting people) at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ 
hrcouncil/UDHR60/index.htm.  From civil society, here's who they had:

1. Ms. Irene Khan
Secretary-General of Amnesty International (AI)
2. Mr. Wilton Littlechild
Chief of Ermineskin Cree nation, indigenous representative
3. Ms. Viktória Mohácsi
Roma community representative
4. Ms. Souhayr Belhassen
President of Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de  
l'Homme (FIDH)
5. Ms. Bian Jianxin
Gold medalist of women powerlifting, Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games

It would have been nice to have a RSF rep or someone like that in the  
mix...

That said, thanks Kathy for noting the connections to NCUC work etc.

Best,

Bill



On Dec 12, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Carlos Afonso wrote:

> Thanks, Kathy. I agree with you, NCUC also has very good reasons to
> celebrate!
>
> Just a typo: we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UNDHR, not  
> the 50th.
>
> bs
>
> --c.a.
>
> Kathy Kleiman wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human
>> Rights, and I wanted to congratulation us. Within ICANN, the NCUC,  
>> since
>> its founding, has been the voice of the UN Declaration of Human  
>> Rights,
>> especially Article 19, and it has been a difficult, but wonderful
>> responsibility. As you know, Article 19 proclaims the right of  
>> freedom
>> of expression:
>>
>>
>>        /Article 19./
>>
>>      Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;  
>> this
>>      right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and
>>      to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any
>>      media and regardless of frontiers.
>>
>>
>> Since our first NCUC resolutions in August 1999 in Santiago, Chile
>> (1999), the NCUC has urged ICANN to protect freedom of expression and
>> personal privacy. We have worked so hard to protect the rights of
>> noncommercial speech, speakers and domain name holders. It has  
>> been our
>> job, and responsibility, to remind the commercial community, and the
>> rest of ICANN, of the importance of personal, political and religious
>> speech.  They often forget (or never knew) that for its first few
>> decades, the Internet (under DARPA and NSF) barred commercial speech.
>> The only Internet speech allowed was noncommercial, educational and
>> research -- a ban that continued into the early 1990s.
>>
>> Many proposed policies -- including the UDRP (as first drafted) --  
>> would
>> have been tremendously damaging to noncommercial speech. We fought  
>> them
>> and committed the Constituency to protecting highe values, those  
>> of the
>> Declaration of Human Rights.
>> My great thanks to our officers and GNSO reps for the wonderful  
>> job of
>> NCUC. Under difficult circumstances and almost always as a minority
>> voice, we fought for international human rights and giving meaning to
>> Article 19 in the Internet Age. We have made a unique and critically
>> important contribution to ICANN. We have made the Internet a better
>> place for our children.
>>
>> I think Eleanor Roosevelt, chairman of the UN Declaration of Human
>> Rights Committee  (and my personal heroine) would have been proud. I
>> wish our current officers, GNSO reps and members the best in the
>> struggles ahead.  Preserving human rights is an awesome task.
>>
>> Best,
>> Kathy Kleiman, Esq.
>> Co-Founder of ICANN's Noncommercial Users Constituency (back in  
>> the old
>> days of 1999)
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------
>> From the UN website:
>>
>>
>>        On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United  
>> Nations
>>        adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human  
>> Rights
>>        the full text of which appears in the following pages.  
>> Following
>>        this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member  
>> countries
>>        to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it  
>> to be
>>        disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in
>>        schools and other educational institutions, without  
>> distinction
>>        based on the political status of countries or territories."
>>
>>
>>        http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
>>
>>

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
   Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
New book: Governing Global Electronic Networks,
http://tinyurl.com/5mh9jj
***********************************************************

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