Recognising and building communication rights

Rainer Kuhlen

The communication rights issue, the right to communicate (r2c), is among the most controversial in the negotiation process leading up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Looking at the discussions during the preparatory committees (Prepcoms), it is very likely that the r2c will be neglected altogether or will only survive as a vague compromise.

Philip Lee

Communication as a right is a comparatively new concept, although its roots reach deep into the history of human thought. The arguments that underlie it are complex and contested. The first task is, therefore, to identify some of the philosophical and ethical strands that comprise this right. The aim is to provide some grounding for discourse on the right to communicate, which includes many aspects of human life, from the right to be heard to the right to be silent. The second part shows how the right to communicate lies at the very heart of the work of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). It emphasises, in particular, the intellectual and advocacy role WACC played in the critical promotion of the rationale for the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). It also touches on WACC's more recent endeavours in coordinating the input of civil society groups to the UN-convoked World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Uma Reflexão Filosofica a Respeito do Direito a se Comunicar

Dr. Michael Traber

O discurso sobre os Direitos à Comunicação parece alcançar um novo momento. Uma razão para isso pode ser que muitos povos, ao iniciar de um novo milênio, experimentam um senso de fragilidade a respeito do mundo ao seu redor. Sentem-se submetidos à guerra, à violência e à degradação ambiental. Sentem-se manipulados na maneira como são levados a votar e a comprar coisas, e inseguros em seus julgamentos morais. Duvidam se ainda podem estar seguros sobre o mundo que desejam viver e deixar para suas crianças. Eles querem se expressar sobre essas angústias, mas não conseguem se fazer ouvidos.

A philosophical enquiry into the right to communicate

Michael Traber

The discourse on the right to communicate seems to be gathering a new momentum) One reason for this may well be that many people, at the threshold of a new millen-nium, experience a sense of powerlessness about the world around them. They feel subjected to war, violence and environmental degradation. They feel manipulated in what they buy and how they vote, and feel insecure in their moral judgements. They doubt whether they can still assert themselves about the world they wish to live in and bequeath to their children. They want to speak out but cannot make themselves heard.

Rossana Reguillo

‘…Los desplazamientos [del capitalismo] contribuyen también al desmantelamiento de la crítica tornándola inoperativa, lo que ha causado la descalificación de las instancias dotadas de un contrapoder a los ojos de los mismos que esperaban de ellas defensa y protección…’

Boltanski y Chiapello

An International Covenant of Standards and Rights

The cultural environment is vital to our common future. Yet, it is currently pervaded by world-wide governmental and commercial censorship, distorted and misleading information, stereotyped and damaging images of the human condition (including gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, physical and mental illness and disability), restricted access to knowledge, and insufficient channels to communicate diverse ideas and opinions. The reality of the cultural environment reduces the capacity of ordinary women and men to control decisions about their lives and about the socialization of their children. It is time, therefore, for individual citizens and their organizations to take an active role in the shaping of the cultural environment into which all children are born and in which all people live and learn.

Seán Ó Siochrú

Following the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in December 2003, the CRIS Campaign, supported by WACC and the Ford Foundation, launched a project on ‘Global Governance and Communication Rights: A Role for Civil Society’. The goal of the project is to promote understanding of communication rights and to reform their governance, especially of media and communication. The context is the rapidly changing and globalising media and communication environment, with governance structures from national to transnational levels unable to keep pace. The project develops toolkits and concrete supports for civil society to respond to such change, in a national context but also in the context of an emerging global civil society.

William J. McIver, Jr., William F. Birdsall, and Merrilee Rasmussen, Q.C.

The development of the Internet challenges traditional conceptions of information rights. The discourse surrounding these rights and the Internet typically deals with each right in isolation and attempt to adapt long established understandings of each right to the new technological environment. We content there is a need to address information rights within a comprehensive human rights framework, specifically, a right to communicate. This paper examines the development of a right to communicate and how it can be defined and implemented.

Marc Raboy

The World Summit on the Information Society has opened a new phase in global communication governance and global governance generally. The WSIS process (including both official and parallel activities) has identified the problematic issues in global communication, indicated the range of views on how to deal with them, provided various blueprints of what should and could be possible in the way of solutions, and gingerly explored ways of dealing with these questions in the future. To that extent, WSIS has crystallized a new paradigm in global governance in which information and communication issues are central, and in which new actors, particularly those rooted in civil society, will be increasingly involved. This is good news for democracy even if it must be taken with a large grain of salt.