Palabras en juego

communication space challenges this premise. One of the current policy debates
related to the global nature of Internet concerns human rights and Internet
governance, and to what extent the current mechanisms for Internet governance
have an impact on human rights. Many civil society groups argue that human right
issues of privacy, freedom of expression, access to information, and the public
domain of knowledge are at stake in the existing governance structures.
Furthermore, there is the challenge of reforming the existing governing structures,
since the current forum for domain name management is a private party
dominated by a limited number of countries and based on a contract with a single
government. Here the human rights stance has been that the result of the ongoing
negotiations must ensure that the future mechanisms for Internet governance are
human rights compliant, both in their composition and governing structures and
through regular monitoring and assessment of their decisions. “It is a state
responsibility to ensure that Internet governance mechanisms are compliant with
human right standards, that there are means to enforce them, and that
governments can be held accountable for human rights violations, including before
international courts. Internet governance mechanisms can and should further
human rights by ensuring an enabling environment that protects and enforces
human rights standards and democratic principles of inclusiveness, transparency,
checks and balances, and the rule of law”[18]. At present, there seem to be a
growing acceptance of Internet as a global commons, which implies effective
access for all countries to participate in decisions regarding enjoyment of this
common good.
Another debate concerns the global CRIS (Communication Rights in the
Information Society) campaign. The CRIS campaign has raised issues of
knowledge ownership and media diversity within the information society agenda,
and demands the recognition of a new human right; the right to communicate. In
response to this, a number of human rights groups have argued that these issues
can and should be addressed within the existing human rights framework. The
right to communicate should not be conceived as a new and independent right but
rather as an umbrella concept; communication rights, encompassing the effective
implementation of a group of related existing rights. [19]
A continuous and final battlefield to be mentioned is the struggle to ensure that
working for and with human rights in the information society does not limit itself
solely to the affirmation of already set human rights standards, but includes the
effective protection and implementation of these rights.
With regard to technical developments entailing privacy threats, these call for a
tight legal and political framing, which must be built upstream through privacy
impact assessments, and not only once the risks have manifested themselves in
our everyday life.
It is urgent that we continuously address the challenge of bringing people and
countries closer to the standards outlined in the human rights treaties, and
evaluate their realization through benchmarks and indicators for national
enforcement and compliance. So far the WSIS process has shown little political
willingness to address this challenge.