Читать книгу The Handbook of Communication Rights, Law, and Ethics - Группа авторов - Страница 32

Loreto Corredoira

The foundations of the universality of communication rights were laid down in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and confirmed in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966. Both texts define three communication rights: seek, receive, and impart. These three activities are at the heart of how the Internet is used across the world today. These three facets of the right also shaped the discussion that took place at the World Summit on the Information Society (as stated in ITU 2003). This chapter discusses the threats to communication rights that originate from the Internet and its universal or mass nature. Though there are many such threats, they should not hinder efforts to ensure the universal application of these rights. The “universal subject” in the information society and the rights that this subject possesses are described in this chapter.

A decade ago, I reflected on UDHR Article 19 (Corredoira 2007) in the context of Web 2.0. My primary focus was how this Article relates to the integration of new forms of public participation in media as well as to the new messages and methods that the Internet makes possible for industries and individual professionals. Since the use of the Internet became widespread in the mid-1990s, the universalization of communication rights has become even clearer. A range of stakeholders has emerged: a public that participates in and contributes to discussions in the media; media channels run by “digital natives” who require no license to broadcast or “print”; and social networks that democratize the communication of information and facilitate many channels for seeking it – sometimes from disruptive sources (Wasserman 2017, p. 72) – and for contributing to collaborative journalism.

Without any doubt, the guarantees contained in the generic right I have just analyzed or in the different “Bills of Rights” that contain them are, as Stephens (2005) says, insufficient. This is why it is useful to deconstruct this generic right into three rights: to seek information and ideas, to receive information and ideas, and to impart information and ideas. As a matter of fact, almost all international texts that recognize and interpret this “standard” do so while highlighting the “multifaceted” nature of freedom of expression, what we call, communication rights in order to reflect better this poliedric nature.

According to both Padovani (Padovani and Pavan 2006) and Raboy (Raboy 2004, pp. 345–359), communication rights originated in the United Nations Charter as described by D’Arcy when he proposed the “right to communicate,” a different concept than “communication rights” but that shares with the latter the idea that we are in need of a more extensive, fleshed-out right or set of three rights:

International recognition of the centrality of information to human rights dates back to the UN Charter, where article 19 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; these rights includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

(Padovani and Pavan 2006)

International recognition of the centrality of information to human rights dates back to the UN Charter, where article 19 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; these rights includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

(Padovani and Pavan 2006)

Yet it was not until 1969 that another concept, that of a universal “right to communicate” emerged in the words of Jean D’Arcy, former director of the Radio and Visual Service at the Office of Public Information for the UN:

The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down-twenty one years ago in Article in 19. This is the right to communicate.

(D’Arcy 1969)

“The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down-twenty one years ago in Article in 19. This is the right of man to communicate.

d’Arcy (1969)

Twenty-five years from the rise of the Web, the appearance of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism and marketing, the digitalization of the commercial world, and the sharing economy are all trends that make it necessary to reassess the foundations of communication rights.

In the spirit of “updating” communication rights enshrined in the UDHR – rights that, as we will see in other chapters of this book, are the natural evolution of the “freedom of expression” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – the Declaration of Principles, also known as the Geneva Declaration (International Telecommunications Union 2003), of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was approved in 2003. This declaration, which was supported by the UN as well as by the International Telecommunications Union (2003, 2014), established the universal nature of the information society and that no one can be excluded from those benefits. Therefore, the text was revised and included an update of the concept of communication rights by introducing the concept of the right to communicate we have referred to earlier. Among the things that the right to communicate sought to ensure was the “universality” of Internet access, something that the legislation of many countries does not guarantee. In light of the risks of a digital divide between countries and individuals, the declaration recognizes that “everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers” (ITU 2003). Thus, a new dimension to communication rights, universality of access was highlighted and entered our contemporary conversation around communication rights and what they seek to guarantee.

Other distinguished academics such as Danieli, Stamatopoulou, and Dias (1999) as well as Birdsall (2007), have reflected on the ins and outs of that declaration, which will be the subject of several pages in the current volume. In particular, O’Flaherty (2012, pp. 627–654) has focused on freedoms related to communication, and more precisely on the “right to communicate.” Works such as those edited by Corredoira and Cotino (2013) or Bel Mallén and Corredoira (2015) or the study by Arellano (2012) serve as references for the most relevant freedoms and rights in the Latin American context and that also make it necessary to speak of communication rights, not just of a unidimensional right to freedom of expression.